You'd have to remove the DRM protection to get the same results. But by that point it's no easier than ripping a blu ray, and with ripping you get the added benefit of having a physical copy.

I find putting a DVD into a DVD player without having to sign in, have credit, a credit card, and have wifi to be the easiest. Usually costs less too

I'd say no. Because it's online and attached to your account it can be lost. If for some reason you lose access to your Apple account you lose everything you've bought. And a lot of these online services don't want you to share or transfer your account. So like if you pass away, most of these online services don't allow you to transfer the account to a living relative (per of the TOS) (granted I doubt there's much I could do to actually stop you if you just leave them out of it and just give the account to somebody).