This week I finished watching NCIS series 5, therefore stocking up on the next instalment was top of my list of things to do.

I checked iTunes, £24.99. The Amazon, £9.99 - with free delivery.

O.K.

So burning 6 disks, moulding the case, printing the sleeve, and shipping it from the Channel Islands to my door - 634 miles according to Google Maps - is 150% cheaper than the digital download. Utter. Craziness.

So why? Could it be that digital distribution has removed the supply portion of the supply/demand graph that we learned at school? Digital has essentially negated constraints on supply, everything can be available everywhere, instantly, a negligible delivery cost, so that removes the incentive to reduce prices when a title isn't selling.

Another thought was; where's the competition to iTunes? Everywhere and his dog has music, but who does films and TV shows? As much as everyone hates on iTunes they are pretty much unchallenged in their breadth of content - and their breadth is nothing on Amazon's DVD collection.

So for the moment I'm pretty much exclusively still buying DVDs.

Comments? Tweet me @mealybar, smoke signals, or homing pigeon, or something :)