I've always been a fan of physical media—DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl —you name it, I’ve almost certainly purchased or used it at some point in my life. Ever since my Grandfather got me Pinocchio on DVD in 2008 I've been hooked.
In a world where everything is becoming digitised a lot of people seem to think that physical media is dying, but I don't think this is the case. The more the world becomes digital the less we own. This might sound counter intuitive but it's true. How many times have you wanted to watch something on Netflix and a week later it is removed? Or your Spotify premium ran out so you can't play the exact song you want? This is because the streaming services can remove anything they want at any given time, and you can't do anything about it. However, what about films you buy to own on Sky or a game you bought on Steam? I bought it full price, so I own it right? Again you don't own the item you bought, you just bought a licence to play or watch it. It's weird to think about but the more you think about it the more you appreciate the importance of physical media.
However, I don't believe that every form of physical media will be around forever such as VHS. VHS was the most popular format to watch films (at home) from the 70s all the way to the early 2000s. However, when DVD came out in the late 90s it had higher quality video, more durable and had more storage than VHS, it was a natural progression from one type of media to another. However, some films such as Terrifier 2 got a special VHS as a nod to its '70s and '80s grindhouse roots, but is this really a nod to the old grindhouse films or is it just nostalgia bait to try to get more money from people?
Another reason why physical media is so important is because it is the best way of preserving art. The only way physical media can be destroyed is by physically breaking it. People seem to assume that if something is backed up to the cloud it will stay there forever but in reality even something as small as a power cut can wipe everything (yes this is oversimplifying it, but you get the point). Whereas if someone wanted to get rid of the entire Talking Heads discography they would have to find every single release of their music which would be physically impossible. However, there have been some events in history where it would have been nice to have a digital backup of the media such as the burning of the library of Alexandria which was when 40,000 scrolls got burned and so much history, culture and art got lost because of it.
An argument against physical media is the cost of them. The average price of a record is around £20-30 whereas Spotify is only £9.99 a month, and you can listen to what you want. People justify the high price of Spotify and Netflix with the argument of “There are thousands of hours worth of content I enjoy”, but you don't buy Netflix or Spotify to listen to and watch everything there is, you are paying for the convenience to put whatever you want on at any time. Adding onto my point before, if you physically own the album or film on whatever form of media you like you know YOU own that. You don't have to worry about the subscriptions taking it away from you. However, I will admit that subscription services are cheaper in the short run, one 4K film can set you back around £19.99 whereas Netflix is only £9.99. However, most people don't just have one subscription. A study by the Independent estimates that the average brit spends around £500 a year on subscriptions. That may not sound a lot to some but think of the price you are paying to the amount you are receiving. With the subscriptions you are probably only consuming a very small percentage of everything that's on the platform whereas if you buy a record or film you are consuming the full 100% of it.
My final point is quality. Physical media will always have better quality than streaming and there is no doubt about it. I never believed it until I bought A Clockwork Orange on 4k back in 2022. The first time I saw the film on streaming it was incredibly low quality and in a tiny box, when I watched the 4K version I thought I was watching a film which came out last year. Another example of this is the album The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. Since Spotify uses a compression algorithm to make the data as compact as possible it means the music loses some data hence losing quality. Since this album is so dense and full of instruments, listening to it on Spotify just feels weird and messy whereas if you listen to it on a CD you can hear every single instrument, it's like an entirely different album.
So what am I saying? I'm not saying that you need to cancel all your subscriptions, I'm saying you need to be less reliant on them. In twenty or thirty years time when Spotify or Netflix gets replaced with something new and better what will you have to show? Nothing, because you don't own anything.