Our world is becoming more and more digital as the years tick by, leaving the fate of physical media up in the air and in danger of being lost for good. 

This reality has made physical media more important than ever before because it has quickly become the only surefire way to ensure you can hold onto the media you love. 

We have witnessed just how powerless we are to hold onto our media if a large streaming service decides they do not want to keep a movie or show anymore. 

The past few years have seen streaming services, like Max, delete shows and films from their platform without warning in an attempt to save money on residuals. These shows, if not picked up by another streaming service, are effectively wiped away. 

As society has begun to shift away from physical items to their digital counterparts in all aspects, it is no surprise that all forms of media have started to follow suit. 

E-books, Netflix and Spotify have largely taken the place of paperbacks, DVDs and vinyl records. 

These issues with digital media extend to video games as well. Recent headlines have drawn attention to game companies shutting down servers, effectively shutting out players from playing their games, even if they already ‘owned’ them. 

Long gone are the days when purchasing a game guaranteed you could play it as long as your console functioned, no matter what the developer was doing. 

This has even caused a man named Ross Scott who runs the YouTube channel Accursed Farms to put together a petition to bring about legislative change to prevent studios from selling games and then shutting them down with no way for players to access what they bought. 

This has been labeled the “Stop Killing Games Initiative” and while the project is still in its infancy, it shows  the reality that there are grass-roots efforts to combat corporations and ensure that media, once bought, is yours forever again. 

There is no denying that improvements in technology have benefited us, but it has also made us over-reliant on the internet. We have neglected physical media for long enough that companies and retailers no longer have a viable basis to keep making and selling them. 

If your media consumption is reliant on an internet connection, what do you do when there is no service? If all of your books are on a Kindle, what do you do if it one day stops working?

This digital world we now live in has made access easier and removed the hassle of storing physical copies of media in your home, but has also removed power from the hands of the consumers. 

If a company decides to not pay for your favorite movie, it is extinct. If your favorite artist is not on Spotify, it may become nearly impossible to listen to their music. 

Despite the hassle and expense, prioritize purchasing physical media whenever and wherever you can. It is not a guarantee that it will keep being produced and once it is fully gone, there is nothing left for us as consumers to do. 

It may be more expensive to buy records and DVDs in the short term, but compared to how much we pay now for various monthly services year-round, paying the one-time premium to have it for life does not seem so bad. 

If you own products, you are safe from companies flipping a switch and telling you that you do not get to use them anymore. 

Enjoy the benefits of the digital, but do not forsake the physical, no matter how much easier that reality becomes. 

But of course, that’s just one man’s opinion. 

Categories: Opinion

Tags: Opinion