I mean technically speaking, VHS is still hanging around - remember I just said that 2016 was when the last company stopped making VCRs. There's still occasionally some special releases of things on VHS.
Obviously we are no longer getting every major Hollywood release on VHS and I doubt this will ever become a full-blown VHS revival-type thing à la the vinyl revival and we won't start seeing retail stores carrying videocassettes again and we won't have companies start to manufacture VCRs again, but the format itself? Technically not dead yet and you can't exactly point to a 'last movie released on VHS' like you can with Betamax. (It was Mission Impossible for Betamax btw, at least in the US - IDK about other countries)
Anyways thinking back on it, I really wish I hadn't just gotten rid of most of my videotapes back when I was like 14 years old, think I just gave them to someone who sold them for literal pennies and I got back like $50 total from them all. I'd rather have gone through them specifically decided which ones do I want to actually keep and which ones do I want to get rid of. It was all kid's TV shows and movies, but there were definitely things in there I would've 100% kept like my Thomas & Friends tapes, Shrek and Shrek 2, and The Land Before Time.
So as it is now my videotape 'collection' is the shit that survived that mass purging, which means it's mostly stuff that was literally meant for preschoolers like some Barney & Friends tapes that I'm pretty sure I never watched in my entire life (and considering these tapes are on top of a shelf that even my literally 5'11 adult self can barely reach, maybe there's a reason I never watched these things as a little kid) and some tapes in my bedroom that weren't with the big collection. Like I know I got at least two surviving Thomas & Friends tapes and I'm pretty sure I still got my copies of Toy Story 2 and Thomas and the Magic Railroad in my bedroom too, but that's literally it.
It sucks - I still got a VCR, I got two VCRs in fact, and one of them is basically all-ready to be hooked up to the TV again. I just don't do it because the TV only has one set of composite input, so it'd be a pain in the ass having to unplug the cable box and then plug in the VCR (actually a VCR/DVD combo unit) to watch something and then have to unplug the VCR/DVD combo unit and replug in the cable box.
I should invest in an AV switcher TBH so I can just have the cable box, VCR/DVD combo unit, and my Wii all hooked up and I'd just need to switch the inputs on the switcher instead - a lot easier than having to constantly unplug and replug in cables. They're less than $20, maybe I'll see if Best Buy has one or something after Christmas.
