You’re also forgetting the precursor to streaming: digital movie downloads, like on iTunes. I’m sure that also helped Blu-rays never really take over.

Which, in some way, is a shame, because I distinctly remember watching a movie on a plain DVD on my parents’ HD TV in very early 2006 and thinking, “Wow, this somehow looks like shit!” and I know I would’ve felt differently if we had a Blu-ray or HD-DVD, but since this was very early 2006, they didn’t even exist yet.