Based on the VCR, he’s been complaining about this for quite a while.
But… why shouldn’t he be paying to see it (for a second time? that’s not really clear, but really irrelevant)?
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Comics I Don't Understand 
He’s upset that it comes out for purchase weeks before it comes out for rent? He’s already waited over a year to see it!
Can we presume he’s checked with his local public library to see if they have a copy to lend?
Yes, and buying is in contrast to two other options which he is upset aren’t on offer. One would be rental (disc or online), for a separate fee, but less than purchase. Or even less costly would be inclusion in a subscription service — you still pay, of course, but periodically for access in general, and not with this as a line item.
The item is available on some streaming services, but none of the ones he uses, thus he must buy a copy. He watches an old VHS instead.
The last panel is a glimpse into the past (note the hair styles and VHS). I’m still not totally sure if the joke is that he used to pay a second time for the packaged VHS, but now expects to see it through his streaming service, or he hasn’t changed in all these years, because he would tape his own copy from the TV rather than pay a second time.
Arlo is upset because the owners of IP want you to buy it over and over again, every time they think of a new format to sell it to you in. Oh, you own the LP? Well, you’ll want to buy it again, as a cassette, so you can take it with you in your Walkman. Oh, you own an analog copy, well, you’ll want to buy it again on CD for the digital clarity. Oh, you have that movie in VHS? You’ll want to buy it again so you can see the awesome digital presentation on DVD. Wait, did we say you wanted it in DVD? No, you want it in HD-DVD. Hmmm. Nobody likes HD-DVD. Have you seen the Blue-Ray? How about the Super Ultra Deluxe 4K version?
We’re starting to get the same thing in videogames. Newer consoles have remakes of old games, with upscaled graphics and higher frame rates, but otherwise the same game.
Even putting aside the fact that nobody’s forcing him to pay for a movie he’s already seen, how does “Fool me once…” apply to any of this?
Conversations like these make me soooo glad I don’t have any idea what you’re talkin’ about . . . I have a few ‘old’ DVDs, but that’s as far as I’ve gone, and never played a video game.
Just throw a curve into this thread drift: If you are interested in books as objects, rather than literature, or a combination thereof, I’ve just begun to read ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: the History and Future of Reading’, by Leah Price. I never realized there was such a course of study as the ‘history of books’, and it’s interesting to look at books from her perspective.
“Even putting aside the fact that nobody’s forcing him to pay for a movie he’s already seen”
He hasn’t seen the movie before. If he had, he wouldn’t be looking for a way to see it now.
In the fourth panel, he pulls out his own copy of the movie, which he bought last year when it first came out. They can’t fool him; he’s not going to buy it twice. They are going to watch the movie now WITHOUT paying for it again. Take THAT, greedy movie company!
He shouldn’t be paying to see it for a second time because it’s a bad movie, but he won’t know that until he buys it.
Of course the purpose is to make him watch it in a theater when it comes out.
Well, Bill, the answer to your question largely depends on whether this is in Texas or Tennessee, but the main take away is sarcasm: you “can’t” get fooled again.
I don’t know but when we had the bedbugs the rule was – if we have on VHS, the Beta copy goes, if we have it on DVD, the VHS copy goes. Except for James Bond movies. (DVDs can be heated in the treatment. VHS, Beta, cassette tapes and the like – had to be bagged with a bug killing strip in the bag, taken out of the house and stored until the strip could work as they would melt when the house treated.) Vinyl records also were suppose to be removed – but we have them so jammed into the shelves they are on, we just left them as there was no room for them to distort and they don’t seem to have done so.
I took it as having to pay for a movie on a platform you’re already paying for – that makes me nuts! At least in the VCR days you could tape the movie when it came on and have it forever. (or as long as the tape lasted)
. . . or as long as the VCR works. Hubby dumped all our video tapes when he packed up the house to come to FL . . . I actually had all the ‘Home Improvement’ episodes taped, as well as many many other shows. I think he gave them to GoodWill, who probably chucked ’em into the Dipsy Dumpster immediately. When I think of the $$$ spent on videotapes . . . and only a few were replaced with a DVD version (Opus’ ‘Wish For Wings That Work’, ‘The Grinch . . . ‘, ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’ ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’, ‘Amahl and the Night Visitors’, things like that. Which I’ve yet to watch since they were purchased; watching them used to be traditional, but so many traditions have fallen by the wayside.)
I think Mr. Johnson’s style choice for the final panel is throwing some of you off. The panel is a flashback, except for the text, which should be seen as a kind of voiceover for the flashback depicted. That text doesn’t actually belong to the scene.. note that there’s no dialog bubble for it. It’s “offscreen-present-day-Arlo” who’s saying that, not “in-scene-flashback-Arlo” saying it.
That’s a Beta tape and a VHS machine. Arlo bought a movie on Beta. Later on, when the Betamax died and he and Janis got a new machine, but only VHS was available by that time (Beta was available in Japan for many, many years after its withdrawal from the USA, but Arlo and Janis are in the USA). So he was stucked with a movie he paid $39.95 for (in 1983 dollars) that he could not play. Never again!
I bet he still has the tape as a reminder to not fall for the hype.
So he was really happy about streaming and embraced it. And now…It’s.All.Happening. Again.