Always-online is definitely a future I refuse to invest in. I do not buy always-online "live service" games, be they MMOs, "quasi-MMOs" (e.g., Anthem, Destiny), or competitive multiplayer-only games (e.g., battle royales, MOBAs, and certain games in more traditional genres & subgenres). I made the mistake of buying Destiny when it first came out, as since it was Bungie I wanted to make just one exception to my rule. It was a mistake I will never repeat. The game's minute-to-minute combat loop was satisfying enough, as was the initial act of exploring the game world, but everything surrounding that really dragged the experience down. Not only was it clearly designed first and foremost to be this endless grind for better loot, it was an always-online game, and the game went out of its way to remind me why I don't like always-online. Every time PSN was down, or Destiny's servers were down, or my own internet connection was down, I could not play the game, period. And there's also the fact that for most of these games the servers will be permanently shut down one of these days. The history of gaming is littered with the corpses of dead MMOs.
Streaming takes the problems associated with those sorts of games and applies them to gaming as a whole. Is either the streaming service or your internet is down? Then you can't play anything, period. And if a title is removed from the service for whatever reason, well, that's it. It's gone, perhaps permanently if it was delisted over some rights issue. Games get delisted for various reasons all the time, and many of them have never returned. With streaming, though, you don't even have the option of saving a local copy. Streaming is the absolute worst possible future for gaming, as it means that any title could at a moment's notice be irrevocably erased from existence.
Digital downloads are better than streaming, but they have a host of problems of their own. For one, they're still digital, with all the caveats that come with that. You own nothing. Digital downloads are, at least in the U.S., treated as "licensed, not sold." This means you're essentially leasing the copy, which still belongs to the publisher. You have no right of first-sale. This means your ability to lend, sell, gift, or trade a copy is entirely dependent on whether the publisher gives you permission to do so. And they are not legally required to do so in the U.S., meaning that if they do give you the means to do so it is purely as a courtesy. The publisher can rescind the license at any time for any reason or no reason at all. While this is rare, there is precedent for individual titles and even entire libraries of digital content being remotely nuked by the publisher or platform owner. The fact that it's even possible and legal in the first place is to me a massive red flag.
There's also the problem of long-term availability of titles. As mentioned, games get de-listed from digital storefronts all the time. This means that if you didn't get them while the getting is good, you ain't getting it, period. By the end of August, nobody will be able to buy a digital copy of Driveclub ever again until the end of time. Same for a great many other titles before it, many of which were only available digitally. And if the storefront you bought it from ceases to exist, you can no longer even re-download a digital copy you actually did purchase, so if you lose it for whatever reason it's gone forever. I had this happen with my Halo 2 DLC when MS shut down support for the OXbox (though fortunately there was a physical option, as all but the last two maps were released on a disc). The same thing could very well happen to every one of games I downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel, including Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Gradius Rebirth, and multiple Virtual Console purchases. If that data gets corrupted or erased, those games are forever gone.
With physical, the copy is your property. You have the right to lend, sell, gift, or trade a copy at your own discretion, as per the first-sale rule. The publisher no longer owns that particular copy. If you take care of your stuff, it will last you a lifetime barring some freak accident. When a game goes out of print, the copies that were made don't simply vanish into the ether. Physical continues to benefit from a thriving second-hand market. Most commonly available games for systems long since discontinued are still obtainable today. Though the rarer ones can cost a fair amount, the popular ones are typically rather cheap to buy second-hand. If you didn't buy the game while it was still in print, there is a very high likelihood that you can still buy a copy long after the fact, and if you have an old copy and it somehow breaks, it should be relatively easy to replace for most games. While the hardware might wear out, third-party clones will become available 20 years after the system was released. And the best thing about 80s/90s console gaming: none of it was dependent on the internet to function. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of modern online-only titles, as once the game's servers are shut down you essentially have a $60 coaster remaining. But for any offline game made today, they will still be playable no matter what happens to the system's online services. Physical not only holds up better against the ravages of time, it is (again, except for modern online-only titles) not dependent on the continued support of some third party entity.
From my perspective, my experience, and given the current state of the law, physical is the superior format. I want to own and control what I buy, which is why I don't buy multiplayer-only games or any other kind of online-only game, nor do I spend any money on downloading any new titles anymore (every digital copy I have this generation I got for free). In fact, if it weren't for Halo, I wouldn't even be paying for Xbox Live anymore.