Downloads and streams ignore a popular part of the home-viewing experience.

It's a time of division out there in the nation's heartlands. There's no middle ground anymore, it seems; you're either for it or against it. Don't worry though, we're not talking about politics here, but a topic that's a lot less divisive, although it may also be fought over a generational faultline: discs. Notably CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. Do you still bother to use them, or have you moved on?

It's a question that's often pondered around these parts, as DVDs in particular have been a big part of the comedy boom over the last few decades. One thing we will miss if physical discs do vanish off the face of the earth eventually though is bonus features. That was one of the big selling points that made people take a punt on collecting DVDs rather their beloved VHS tapes years ago - the promise of some exclusive extras.

We all love a bonus. Whether it's a nice boost to your supermarket reward points after a sizeable spin round the aisles, or surprisingly good odds when you pop over to a site like bCasino for a flutter, or even the surprise little packet of Haribo one online eyewear retailer sends out with all its contact lens orders, for some random but splendid reason: those little freebies all help to keep us sweet.

Actually the big distribution companies then repeated that bonus-feature trick to get people to switch again, from DVDs to the more expensive Blu-rays (because let's face it, no-one can ever really tell the difference in quality between those two formats: if someone admitted tomorrow that they've actually been exactly the same all along, you wouldn't really be surprised). And it works: people like to know that they're getting extra stuff, even if they've never watched a DVD extra in their life.

Those extras can be brilliant, particularly if it's a comedian or movie director who loves the format. Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy is particularly worth snapping up on disc if you see them - every charity shop in Britain has at least one copy of Shaun Of The Dead - as he clearly put a lot of thought into good extras before even starting the actual movies. Wright and Simon Pegg physically flicking through their original flipchart brainstorm-storyboards is a definite highlight, as they pore over the ideas that did and didn't make it into the final cut.

For some reason download and streaming sites don't seem to bother with the bonus features, perhaps because the lower cost of those formats means that gambling on making the extra content just isn't worth it. But they generally don't even offer it as an added extra when you buy an older movie or show that already had those features, when it came out on disc. If we're downloading or streaming a movie, why not offer us the extras straight afterwards, rather than sending us to some totally irrelevant suggestion the algorithm throws up?

Honestly, if the movie or show is addictive enough, and we finish it, we'll lap up those making-of documentaries, director's commentaries and gag reels. We'd probably even pay extra for them. It's a bonus for everyone.