I'm 14 and my dad had always been buying, selling and fixing older technology like crts and old game consoles like the fm towns and turbo grafx which made me like physical media. Later I also read things on streaming services that upset me and caused me to quit non physical entirely. The cuts on what the original creator's is what upset me the most. I'm really happy to see that there are still many people who buy physical media.
Without getting too 'tin foil hat' about it all, everything that we consumer, whether it be media, software services, even food, clothes, and features on our cars are becoming subscription based. Soon (perhaps in the next ten years), we will own nothing. Banks and large corporations will hold access to everything we need as human beings and that makes the world a very dark place indeed. I took the step to cancel all my streaming services and go back to physical media - buying CDs, getting books second hand (or from the library) and even renting DVDs through the post again. A couple of years on, I'm still loving it. I rip CDs to an iPod that I keep in the car, I have access to over 100,000 movies from the DVD rental service - almost none of which are available on Netflix or Prime. The public need to vote with their wallets if they're going to prevent this freedom of ownership being taken away from us - already there are rumblings that Video Game publishers are trying to find ways of preventing the distribution of secondhand games. New car purchases require a monthly subscription to switch on certain features (such as heated seats). It's outrageous and no Western government is going to do anything to protect us. If you've not yet done so and you're still unsure, don't be. Take the plunge. Buy a secondhand CD player and DVD player for a few bucks from a charity shop and start collecting - you won't regret it for a second!
I have over 800 CD's and a similar amount of DvD's/Blu Ray/VHS tapes. My book library is just as large. I'm still very much collecting physical media, but it's getting more difficult.
I'm 36 and I'm happy to clutter my space with stuff. It feels like a kingdom of my own. Flicking through my Steam library or Netflix or whatever means absolutely nothing, I feel nothing. It's indistinguishable from pirated things.
I feel this very much. There is an erosion of the sense of permanency in the modern world. My various libraries and collections are my anchor against it.
As someone who has a lot of physical media and stuff , eventually the machines will break down and they won't be repairable or available to buy so that's gonna be a problem. I mostly worry about CRT TVs that tend to " drop colours " as we say here and can't really be reliably fixed. Got 6 gaming consoles hooked and they won't be functional either in the end. Like e.g. look at how difficult and expensive it is to get a 51/4-inch floppy drive to work in an old setup. People get poorer and all these things won't be affordable in the future cause they enter the "collector's" zone.
Yes, I know how difficult it is becoming to replace the hardware that runs some of the physical media. My iPod died and I couldn't find a new one that had enough storage to hold my collection so I had to improvise.
Hey Man, I'm about 30 years old and I watched your video. GenX raised me, and taught me a lot of the things that you talk about in this video. The finality of owning a thing. I don't really collect books and such, but I do my own art with pen and paper, and I collect some older technology. There is something to be said about older technology and how it's just around in a finite amount. There probably will never be another reason to create CRT Televisions, as production of LCD have gotten very cheap compared to the early 2000s. I probably won't get to hold anymore videogame cartridges that I haven't already accumulated myself, borrowing a game from a friend is becoming less and less of an idea as time marches on. I miss going over to a friends house and I would have a game that he liked, and he would have a game that I liked, and we would swap them for a week or so until the next time we got to have a sleep over or little play date type thing. Tons of old internet pages that I will never visit again, ones that I would have a rather hard time finding just because of how streamlined the mainstay internet is. I'll never actually hear dial-up tones coming from my modem again. When I whittle down a pencil and scratch graphite into paper, it's real. It's a one of a kind work, I can't undo anything once I put it there. I live with the lines, even if I erase them, they persist very lightly, I could mask them, but the paper is forever changed. I can't remove paint, only smudge most of it away from the canvas. It was a skill that I built upon thousands of pieces of paper, trees as sacrifice for something that I can do. There is still more paper at the store, there is still more trees in the woods, there are still more factories making these things today, and they will never be free. I hope that you don't think you aren't heard. Someone a little younger understands too, it's not because you're old. It's because the world got a little bit emptier.
Vinyl records have made somewhat of a resurgence in the last few years, and cassette tapes are starting to make a comeback too. Don't count out physical media just yet! You hear about all these bands and artists reissuing their albums on CD or 180-gram vinyl or whatever, and you soon realize there's plenty of life left in the old formats. I have faith that these old formats aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe their popularity has waned, but everything ebbs and flows, and this is no different. There will always be a certain level of demand for it.
True, CD's seem to be on their way out at the moment. I have a "wish list" that my family uses to buy stuff for me, and this Christmas it was practically impossible to find anything. There are a few things here and there, but a majority of my list is inaccessible in physical form unless you're willing to pay big dollars for something that's out of print.
True, CD's seem to be on their way out at the moment. I have a "wish list" that my family uses to buy stuff for me, and this Christmas it was practically impossible to find anything. There are a few things here and there, but a majority of my list is inaccessible in physical form unless you're willing to pay big dollars for something that's out of print.
I'm 17 and I always buy physical books and I'm always looking for dvds and cds at charity shops and getting them from ebay and stuff. they're really not as expensive as people would think! One aspect where I think digital media has the upper edge is with independent art, nowadays people are making albums in their bedrooms and are able to actually get an audience, but all in all I love physical media so much
you guys should check out band camp - small artists just making music in their bedrooms take the time to get their music put on CDs and they’ll receive 100% of the money that you pay to them
This is an important topic. I'll add my own long rambling rant here. Yes, physical media has its advantages, but its problems must also be acknowledged. I used to have a massive amount of physical media, but then I moved to one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, and I simply couldn't afford to have a room full of records and CDs, so I unfortunately had to purge most of that stuff. This is where digital downloads are nice. They don't take up much space, and they are convenient to access. The big problem with digital downloads is DRM (digital rights management). I won't go near Apple because of that. Fortunately, DRM-free music downloads are not hard to find, and some services have lossless CD-quality or better FLAC files, though they tend to cost more than they should. (Sometimes, a download is more expensive than a physical copy - this makes no sense.) If you have DRM-free digital content, you can back it up, move it around, or do whatever you want with it. For those of us who don't have a lot of space but still want to own a huge music library, this is the only viable option. For people relying on this, regular backups are an absolute necessity - you don't want to lose your library to a hard drive failure. However, this goes for physical media too. Physical media can get damaged or degrade over time, and digital physical media is vulnerable to sudden and catastrophic failure. I've had CDs decay and become completely worthless. In a few cases, downloads weren't even available and I had to search the dark corners of the internet to reclaim the content. Now, with the exception of a tiny number which my computer doesn't want to read likely due to DRM, all of the CDs and DVDs still in my collection have been ripped to my hard drive. Video content is a much greater problem. Unlike with music, where consumers demanded and eventually got DRM-free downloads from services other than Apple, this hasn't happened with video. It is rare to be able to buy a DRM-free video download. The only options here are to rip the DVD or Blu-ray (and defeat whatever DRM might be on the disc) or to sail the seven seas in search of torrents. I would happily buy DRM-free video downloads, but the option isn't available. Streaming is fine if I only want to watch something once, but it doesn't work if I actually want to own something. People who "buy" video content online are merely renting this content for an indeterminate amount of time. When the service shuts down (as recently happened with Funimation), your video library disappears in an instant. These so-called services will never get my money. Video games also have huge problems with DRM. Even physical copies are not safe these days, as they are often incomplete or out of date, and they usually have DRM and are therefore difficult to back up. Many have always-online DRM. If the server goes down, the game stops working. GOG, which offers DRM-free offline installers, is the best option here, but not all games are released on GOG. I refuse to buy games with always-online DRM, so there are some games that I simply won't play. What I'm getting at here is that the real problem is DRM, whether it is implemented on a physical object or in digital files. It contradicts real ownership by limiting what a person can do with this item that has supposedly been purchased. It makes backing up a physical copy difficult, and it can result in the loss of online content with no warning. Remove the DRM, and both physical and non-physical media are good for long term and flexible ownership. I can see the attraction of physical media, and I used to be fully devoted to it until I could no longer accommodate it in the limited space that I have. Within my limited space, I prioritize books because I can't stand reading books from a screen. Books are also robust as long as they are reasonably well stored - I have a book from the 1500s that is still mostly intact. I doubt any CD will last that long.
With regards to the "for the environment" excuses companies make - it's even worse when you take a look at the bigger picture. The datacenters necessary for all of this on-demand digital media all require an enormous amount of power and water (for cooling). The companies involved can grandstand about their carbon offsets and sourcing some portion of their power draw from renewables, but excessive consumption is encouraged and enabled. The person leaving The Office running for hours as white noise is not only consuming power via the device playing the show, but all of the hardware involved in data transmission as well. Admittedly, there is an irony posting this on a platform that relies on the same, but I'd argue the difference is that there is no feasible globally-distributed offline equivalent to TH-cam. As a result, the datacenter power and water footprint is necessary. For media, physical was the solution to mass distribution.
Well to put this in perspective you mentioned how much damage cds make to the environment that is literally nothing to the thousands of servers that run those streaming companies use cause they're on all the time it's not like they turn them off unless there's an issue and it's usually one a few so really you're being more environmentally friendly by buying cds. until the human race invents a pretty cleaner electrical grid which might be fusion reactors then all those servers being used are screwing the environment up.
not to mention it probably is related to psychology but there's something you get from a physical book from digital the fact you hold the book and flip the pages the texture of the paper it's a more surreal moment then flick a screen and feeling nothing.
When we own a physical library of media although it takes space it is always there for us in its original form. We have bought it once. Digital libraries are rentals of media that could be censored or removed, and may no longer be available if we stop paying. The majority of the physical content ever produced is significantly larger than what they are prepared to loan us on the streaming platforms. Therefore much of it is not out there digitally eg James Cameron The Abyss. Many classic movies that should be free are only available at expensive rental costs. It is often cheaper to pick up a used physical copy. For me I have a few streaming services for that exclusive content but really I would much rather buy that content physically but alas it is often not produced. I also love the tactile object in my collection and I’ve no doubt there will be future generations looking at us with a degree of envy, thinking it must be nice to have an actual book, CD, tape record or physical game or movie. The revival of vinyl sales including young adopters may be some support of that theory.
If something is important or important to me I’ll buy it physically for all the reasons you’ve stated. I’ve figured out how to store more audio and video in less space ditching much of the unnecessary packaging (recycle when possible). I do find that most things produced recently aren’t worth owning and I have to be very selective especially with books due to the physical space they require. It all needs to be carefully curated, minimal if any filler and revisited regularly to prioritize and periodically purge. Books are particularly tough for me. Even classic children’s books are being edited and censored at the publisher level, the public libraries have aggressively purged in a strange way, I’m not judging if your absolutely obsessed with Hilary Clinton (there are full shelves of books readily available for you to choose from) but if you want a biography of an earlier figure, many historical books or different even opposing thoughts on anything currently considered controversial in some way you need to order it from the downtown main branch where it’s likely unavailable requiring you to get on a waiting list and cross your fingers. Nothing digital is safe, not even things like the way back machine. We’re in a sort of digital Library of Alexandria moment.
The thing with the streaming services too is that if you have them, you probably have a few of them. Even if you only have 2-3 of them, you pay a similar amount for that as you did for a basic pay TV package 15 years ago. The people who wrote and appeared in the shows and movies you watch on Netflix have traditionally made less money in residuals from that than they did from that same episode/movie being played on TV back in the day. This is the big reason why there was that big strike by the Hollywood writers and actors last year. It's the same deal with Spotify vs. hearing a song on the radio. At least with Spotify in particular, apparently it's to the point that you could pirate an album, play it two or three times a day for a year, and then buy a shirt or a poster with that band's logo on it and the band would get more money from that shirt sale than they would have from the residuals from all the plays you would have given them on Spotify. (I got this from Tumblr so it might not be strictly true, but even if it's not quite to that extreme, I'd be shocked if it wasn't heading in that direction.) So the unfortunate reality is that digital is often worse for the artists involved. Even if it's a thing you've played, listened to, or read a lot over the years, they might have gotten more from that one sale of a physical copy than they ever would have from the sale of a digital copy.
Yeah, I'm aware how badly Spotify and Netflix is towards it's creators. There's also the whole video game industry with games being only available in online mode (even single player) and if the company decides to shut down it's servers no one can play anymore. I could have gone on for an hour or more about it, but I try to keep it short. In my own rambling way.
It's so weird to me seeing people "suffering" because of this, I've lived in a third-world country all my life, and we were never able to afford buying physical media, and it seemed like this was the case with everyone I knew, when a friend in school told me he had BOUGHT a movie, I thought he was rich (he had a ps3 while everyone else had a PS2 so maybe he was lol), the "Uprising" of digital media has been a good thing for people like me, who could only watch whatever was on TV using an old TV with an antenna until like 2014 when my family decided to pay for cable (and we didn't have more than 10 channels here if not using cable)
There are pros and cons to everything. My issue, partly, is that we're at the mercy of the people providing us with digital media; and those people/companies have no interest in providing quality to us as the consumers, or the artists creating the media we want to consume.
I'm going back to appreciating physical media, after finally seeing through the broken digital promise. I even got myself a subscription to a paper edition of a video game magazine recently, having stopped buying these in the mid-2000s.
Sad thing is , especially with books there are no digital versions of the old ones. Or they only have the first version. Books smell (good) and you can see how thick they are and what itvis about really easily. Digital books are harder to browse because all the info isn't obvious at first glance like an object is. Storage is an issue, so I live in both worlds. I already have 9 bookshelves and my kindle has just as many titles.
exactly you don't own anything you buy digitally some people still don't understand this when you buy a digital game you're basically buying a permission slip to download it and have access to it and that permission slip can be revoked or taken away at any time for any reason but try explaining that to people selling their game consoles with 100 digital games and wanting more money because of it. you try to explain to them in vain those are not your games to sell but they still under the delusion that their account is theirs.
Enjoyed Your video. I will NEVER get rid of my Physical media. I think it is a huge mistake on the part of retailers as there will always be people who want Physical Media. You get a much better picture with a DVD/BluRay then you do with Streaming. Everybody thought the record was dead when CD's came out, now it is the oppisite. If I buy a movie, I want the physical copy in my hand, and then I REALLY own the movie, or Book or whatever. Take care
I'm 24. I still buy discs for movies when I can. A streaming platform loses the special features on movies, director commentary's, deleted scenes, etc that all movies have on the disc when shipped. Also, you don't have to depend on your internet speed to get good quality since its all available on the disc itself with no buffering! Its the best time to buy physical anyway, with rights to certain shows and movies being shifted from platform to platform but your disc will not cost a further fee beyond purchase, and disc prices right now are dirt cheap. Streams are nice but if i really like something, im gonna make sure I own it. Same for books, games, music, anything that is art. Its okay to own a key, but I'd like to own the house as well if that makes sense.
Occasionally use digital services such as Kindle Unlimited for particular books (or Netflix for unusual TV series) but I still prefer physical media such as comics, books, blurays etc. It is great to be able to pass on a book or CD or DVD to a friend, not so easy with streaming service.
Books and posters are my main thing need both of those to be real would make all the digital wallpapers on my pc posters if i could things like dvds? Idk the option should always be there but i dont quite yearn for them though you have a point about ownership games i actually really miss just putting the game in and playing it rather than waiting an hour or more for it to download
I'm 14 and my dad had always been buying, selling and fixing older technology like crts and old game consoles like the fm towns and turbo grafx which made me like physical media. Later I also read things on streaming services that upset me and caused me to quit non physical entirely. The cuts on what the original creator's is what upset me the most. I'm really happy to see that there are still many people who buy physical media.
Yeah, Spotify really doesn't pay musicians crap.
Without getting too 'tin foil hat' about it all, everything that we consumer, whether it be media, software services, even food, clothes, and features on our cars are becoming subscription based. Soon (perhaps in the next ten years), we will own nothing. Banks and large corporations will hold access to everything we need as human beings and that makes the world a very dark place indeed.
I took the step to cancel all my streaming services and go back to physical media - buying CDs, getting books second hand (or from the library) and even renting DVDs through the post again. A couple of years on, I'm still loving it. I rip CDs to an iPod that I keep in the car, I have access to over 100,000 movies from the DVD rental service - almost none of which are available on Netflix or Prime. The public need to vote with their wallets if they're going to prevent this freedom of ownership being taken away from us - already there are rumblings that Video Game publishers are trying to find ways of preventing the distribution of secondhand games. New car purchases require a monthly subscription to switch on certain features (such as heated seats). It's outrageous and no Western government is going to do anything to protect us.
If you've not yet done so and you're still unsure, don't be. Take the plunge. Buy a secondhand CD player and DVD player for a few bucks from a charity shop and start collecting - you won't regret it for a second!
I have over 800 CD's and a similar amount of DvD's/Blu Ray/VHS tapes. My book library is just as large. I'm still very much collecting physical media, but it's getting more difficult.
I'm 36 and I'm happy to clutter my space with stuff. It feels like a kingdom of my own. Flicking through my Steam library or Netflix or whatever means absolutely nothing, I feel nothing. It's indistinguishable from pirated things.
I feel this very much. There is an erosion of the sense of permanency in the modern world. My various libraries and collections are my anchor against it.
Yeah I know
As someone who has a lot of physical media and stuff , eventually the machines will break down and they won't be repairable or available to buy so that's gonna be a problem. I mostly worry about CRT TVs that tend to " drop colours " as we say here and can't really be reliably fixed. Got 6 gaming consoles hooked and they won't be functional either in the end. Like e.g. look at how difficult and expensive it is to get a 51/4-inch floppy drive to work in an old setup. People get poorer and all these things won't be affordable in the future cause they enter the "collector's" zone.
Yes, I know how difficult it is becoming to replace the hardware that runs some of the physical media. My iPod died and I couldn't find a new one that had enough storage to hold my collection so I had to improvise.
Hey Man,
I'm about 30 years old and I watched your video. GenX raised me, and taught me a lot of the things that you talk about in this video. The finality of owning a thing. I don't really collect books and such, but I do my own art with pen and paper, and I collect some older technology.
There is something to be said about older technology and how it's just around in a finite amount. There probably will never be another reason to create CRT Televisions, as production of LCD have gotten very cheap compared to the early 2000s.
I probably won't get to hold anymore videogame cartridges that I haven't already accumulated myself, borrowing a game from a friend is becoming less and less of an idea as time marches on. I miss going over to a friends house and I would have a game that he liked, and he would have a game that I liked, and we would swap them for a week or so until the next time we got to have a sleep over or little play date type thing. Tons of old internet pages that I will never visit again, ones that I would have a rather hard time finding just because of how streamlined the mainstay internet is. I'll never actually hear dial-up tones coming from my modem again.
When I whittle down a pencil and scratch graphite into paper, it's real. It's a one of a kind work, I can't undo anything once I put it there. I live with the lines, even if I erase them, they persist very lightly, I could mask them, but the paper is forever changed. I can't remove paint, only smudge most of it away from the canvas. It was a skill that I built upon thousands of pieces of paper, trees as sacrifice for something that I can do. There is still more paper at the store, there is still more trees in the woods, there are still more factories making these things today, and they will never be free.
I hope that you don't think you aren't heard. Someone a little younger understands too, it's not because you're old. It's because the world got a little bit emptier.
Well said. I used to draw when I was younger, and I fully understand about the lines erased never quite fading completely.
23 Here. And preach brother!
We need people to continue to support physical. Otherwise it's going to disappear forever.
Vinyl records have made somewhat of a resurgence in the last few years, and cassette tapes are starting to make a comeback too. Don't count out physical media just yet! You hear about all these bands and artists reissuing their albums on CD or 180-gram vinyl or whatever, and you soon realize there's plenty of life left in the old formats. I have faith that these old formats aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe their popularity has waned, but everything ebbs and flows, and this is no different. There will always be a certain level of demand for it.
True, CD's seem to be on their way out at the moment. I have a "wish list" that my family uses to buy stuff for me, and this Christmas it was practically impossible to find anything. There are a few things here and there, but a majority of my list is inaccessible in physical form unless you're willing to pay big dollars for something that's out of print.
True, CD's seem to be on their way out at the moment. I have a "wish list" that my family uses to buy stuff for me, and this Christmas it was practically impossible to find anything. There are a few things here and there, but a majority of my list is inaccessible in physical form unless you're willing to pay big dollars for something that's out of print.
I'm 17 and I always buy physical books and I'm always looking for dvds and cds at charity shops and getting them from ebay and stuff. they're really not as expensive as people would think!
One aspect where I think digital media has the upper edge is with independent art, nowadays people are making albums in their bedrooms and are able to actually get an audience, but all in all I love physical media so much
This is very true, I've found a number of artists that I never would have before if they weren't putting their stuff on the internet.
you guys should check out band camp - small artists just making music in their bedrooms take the time to get their music put on CDs and they’ll receive 100% of the money that you pay to them
This is an important topic. I'll add my own long rambling rant here. Yes, physical media has its advantages, but its problems must also be acknowledged.
I used to have a massive amount of physical media, but then I moved to one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, and I simply couldn't afford to have a room full of records and CDs, so I unfortunately had to purge most of that stuff. This is where digital downloads are nice. They don't take up much space, and they are convenient to access. The big problem with digital downloads is DRM (digital rights management). I won't go near Apple because of that. Fortunately, DRM-free music downloads are not hard to find, and some services have lossless CD-quality or better FLAC files, though they tend to cost more than they should. (Sometimes, a download is more expensive than a physical copy - this makes no sense.) If you have DRM-free digital content, you can back it up, move it around, or do whatever you want with it. For those of us who don't have a lot of space but still want to own a huge music library, this is the only viable option. For people relying on this, regular backups are an absolute necessity - you don't want to lose your library to a hard drive failure. However, this goes for physical media too. Physical media can get damaged or degrade over time, and digital physical media is vulnerable to sudden and catastrophic failure. I've had CDs decay and become completely worthless. In a few cases, downloads weren't even available and I had to search the dark corners of the internet to reclaim the content. Now, with the exception of a tiny number which my computer doesn't want to read likely due to DRM, all of the CDs and DVDs still in my collection have been ripped to my hard drive.
Video content is a much greater problem. Unlike with music, where consumers demanded and eventually got DRM-free downloads from services other than Apple, this hasn't happened with video. It is rare to be able to buy a DRM-free video download. The only options here are to rip the DVD or Blu-ray (and defeat whatever DRM might be on the disc) or to sail the seven seas in search of torrents. I would happily buy DRM-free video downloads, but the option isn't available. Streaming is fine if I only want to watch something once, but it doesn't work if I actually want to own something. People who "buy" video content online are merely renting this content for an indeterminate amount of time. When the service shuts down (as recently happened with Funimation), your video library disappears in an instant. These so-called services will never get my money.
Video games also have huge problems with DRM. Even physical copies are not safe these days, as they are often incomplete or out of date, and they usually have DRM and are therefore difficult to back up. Many have always-online DRM. If the server goes down, the game stops working. GOG, which offers DRM-free offline installers, is the best option here, but not all games are released on GOG. I refuse to buy games with always-online DRM, so there are some games that I simply won't play.
What I'm getting at here is that the real problem is DRM, whether it is implemented on a physical object or in digital files. It contradicts real ownership by limiting what a person can do with this item that has supposedly been purchased. It makes backing up a physical copy difficult, and it can result in the loss of online content with no warning. Remove the DRM, and both physical and non-physical media are good for long term and flexible ownership.
I can see the attraction of physical media, and I used to be fully devoted to it until I could no longer accommodate it in the limited space that I have. Within my limited space, I prioritize books because I can't stand reading books from a screen. Books are also robust as long as they are reasonably well stored - I have a book from the 1500s that is still mostly intact. I doubt any CD will last that long.
It’s sadly a niche thing for most newer generations
With regards to the "for the environment" excuses companies make - it's even worse when you take a look at the bigger picture. The datacenters necessary for all of this on-demand digital media all require an enormous amount of power and water (for cooling). The companies involved can grandstand about their carbon offsets and sourcing some portion of their power draw from renewables, but excessive consumption is encouraged and enabled. The person leaving The Office running for hours as white noise is not only consuming power via the device playing the show, but all of the hardware involved in data transmission as well.
Admittedly, there is an irony posting this on a platform that relies on the same, but I'd argue the difference is that there is no feasible globally-distributed offline equivalent to TH-cam. As a result, the datacenter power and water footprint is necessary. For media, physical was the solution to mass distribution.
Well to put this in perspective you mentioned how much damage cds make to the environment that is literally nothing to the thousands of servers that run those streaming companies use cause they're on all the time it's not like they turn them off unless there's an issue and it's usually one a few so really you're being more environmentally friendly by buying cds. until the human race invents a pretty cleaner electrical grid which might be fusion reactors then all those servers being used are screwing the environment up.
not to mention it probably is related to psychology but there's something you get from a physical book from digital the fact you hold the book and flip the pages the texture of the paper it's a more surreal moment then flick a screen and feeling nothing.
When we own a physical library of media although it takes space it is always there for us in its original form. We have bought it once. Digital libraries are rentals of media that could be censored or removed, and may no longer be available if we stop paying.
The majority of the physical content ever produced is significantly larger than what they are prepared to loan us on the streaming platforms. Therefore much of it is not out there digitally eg James Cameron The Abyss.
Many classic movies that should be free are only available at expensive rental costs. It is often cheaper to pick up a used physical copy.
For me I have a few streaming services for that exclusive content but really I would much rather buy that content physically but alas it is often not produced. I also love the tactile object in my collection and I’ve no doubt there will be future generations looking at us with a degree of envy, thinking it must be nice to have an actual book, CD, tape record or physical game or movie. The revival of vinyl sales including young adopters may be some support of that theory.
If something is important or important to me I’ll buy it physically for all the reasons you’ve stated. I’ve figured out how to store more audio and video in less space ditching much of the unnecessary packaging (recycle when possible). I do find that most things produced recently aren’t worth owning and I have to be very selective especially with books due to the physical space they require. It all needs to be carefully curated, minimal if any filler and revisited regularly to prioritize and periodically purge. Books are particularly tough for me. Even classic children’s books are being edited and censored at the publisher level, the public libraries have aggressively purged in a strange way, I’m not judging if your absolutely obsessed with Hilary Clinton (there are full shelves of books readily available for you to choose from) but if you want a biography of an earlier figure, many historical books or different even opposing thoughts on anything currently considered controversial in some way you need to order it from the downtown main branch where it’s likely unavailable requiring you to get on a waiting list and cross your fingers. Nothing digital is safe, not even things like the way back machine. We’re in a sort of digital Library of Alexandria moment.
In the coming new world order that James Bond movie villain says: "You vill own nothink und you VILL be happy."
The thing with the streaming services too is that if you have them, you probably have a few of them. Even if you only have 2-3 of them, you pay a similar amount for that as you did for a basic pay TV package 15 years ago. The people who wrote and appeared in the shows and movies you watch on Netflix have traditionally made less money in residuals from that than they did from that same episode/movie being played on TV back in the day. This is the big reason why there was that big strike by the Hollywood writers and actors last year.
It's the same deal with Spotify vs. hearing a song on the radio. At least with Spotify in particular, apparently it's to the point that you could pirate an album, play it two or three times a day for a year, and then buy a shirt or a poster with that band's logo on it and the band would get more money from that shirt sale than they would have from the residuals from all the plays you would have given them on Spotify. (I got this from Tumblr so it might not be strictly true, but even if it's not quite to that extreme, I'd be shocked if it wasn't heading in that direction.)
So the unfortunate reality is that digital is often worse for the artists involved. Even if it's a thing you've played, listened to, or read a lot over the years, they might have gotten more from that one sale of a physical copy than they ever would have from the sale of a digital copy.
Yeah, I'm aware how badly Spotify and Netflix is towards it's creators. There's also the whole video game industry with games being only available in online mode (even single player) and if the company decides to shut down it's servers no one can play anymore. I could have gone on for an hour or more about it, but I try to keep it short. In my own rambling way.
It's so weird to me seeing people "suffering" because of this, I've lived in a third-world country all my life, and we were never able to afford buying physical media, and it seemed like this was the case with everyone I knew, when a friend in school told me he had BOUGHT a movie, I thought he was rich (he had a ps3 while everyone else had a PS2 so maybe he was lol), the "Uprising" of digital media has been a good thing for people like me, who could only watch whatever was on TV using an old TV with an antenna until like 2014 when my family decided to pay for cable (and we didn't have more than 10 channels here if not using cable)
There are pros and cons to everything. My issue, partly, is that we're at the mercy of the people providing us with digital media; and those people/companies have no interest in providing quality to us as the consumers, or the artists creating the media we want to consume.
I'm going back to appreciating physical media, after finally seeing through the broken digital promise. I even got myself a subscription to a paper edition of a video game magazine recently, having stopped buying these in the mid-2000s.
Sad thing is , especially with books there are no digital versions of the old ones. Or they only have the first version. Books smell (good) and you can see how thick they are and what itvis about really easily. Digital books are harder to browse because all the info isn't obvious at first glance like an object is. Storage is an issue, so I live in both worlds. I already have 9 bookshelves and my kindle has just as many titles.
jealous of your bookshelves, storage is indeed a problem.
exactly you don't own anything you buy digitally some people still don't understand this when you buy a digital game you're basically buying a permission slip to download it and have access to it and that permission slip can be revoked or taken away at any time for any reason but try explaining that to people selling their game consoles with 100 digital games and wanting more money because of it. you try to explain to them in vain those are not your games to sell but they still under the delusion that their account is theirs.
Enjoyed Your video. I will NEVER get rid of my Physical media. I think it is a huge mistake on the part of retailers as there will always be people who want Physical Media. You get a much better picture with a DVD/BluRay then you do with Streaming. Everybody thought the record was dead when CD's came out, now it is the oppisite. If I buy a movie, I want the physical copy in my hand, and then I REALLY own the movie, or Book or whatever. Take care
I'm 24. I still buy discs for movies when I can. A streaming platform loses the special features on movies, director commentary's, deleted scenes, etc that all movies have on the disc when shipped. Also, you don't have to depend on your internet speed to get good quality since its all available on the disc itself with no buffering! Its the best time to buy physical anyway, with rights to certain shows and movies being shifted from platform to platform but your disc will not cost a further fee beyond purchase, and disc prices right now are dirt cheap. Streams are nice but if i really like something, im gonna make sure I own it. Same for books, games, music, anything that is art. Its okay to own a key, but I'd like to own the house as well if that makes sense.
*commentaries. You're 24, and you can't spell or use basic punctuation?
@@Anonymous-wb3nz nope :)
@@Anonymous-wb3nzHow old are YOU
Occasionally use digital services such as Kindle Unlimited for particular books (or Netflix for unusual TV series) but I still prefer physical media such as comics, books, blurays etc. It is great to be able to pass on a book or CD or DVD to a friend, not so easy with streaming service.
Always been on physical media usually when I watch something I can pirate it usually then relying on streaming for most stuff
And here I am still buying the odd film on laserdisc if I really really like it
Books and posters are my main thing need both of those to be real would make all the digital wallpapers on my pc posters if i could things like dvds? Idk the option should always be there but i dont quite yearn for them though you have a point about ownership games i actually really miss just putting the game in and playing it rather than waiting an hour or more for it to download
you don't need to explain yourself, forget the nay sayers
Physical media is not going anywhere, so just stop.
Please elaborate.