Physical Media: Buy or Die
It’s a dramatic statement, but it’s sort of true. We are dying from a lack of physical media purchases. Not a physical death, but a death of the self, through a loss of identity, control, and say in the world we inhabit. The way we consume media is continually being taken over by ephemeral, intangible technology owned by people who don’t have our best interests at heart, instead looking solely to line their pockets at all costs. Art is arguably one of the most important things in this world, and the loss of mediums that allowed for it in favor of those that don’t has far more serious implications than corporations want us to believe.
History
People have been protesting technological advancements in media for as long as they’ve happened, and while many arguments seem inconsequential to us now, they’re not always wrong. When recorded music was invented, live musicians saw their livelihoods being overtaken and were justifiably upset. Switching from radio to video “killed the radio star”, upending more livelihoods and giving power to TV sitcoms that were essentially long-running visual advertisements. The internet killed record industries’ profits from CD sales through mp3 piracy. And now we have modern arguments against streaming services and digital platforms.
These arguments have pros and cons, but the fight often centers on technology itself. Technology, however, is a neutral vessel; an easy, inhuman target to project ill-intent on. This is convenient for the individuals who control said technology because it distracts from the real problem: the ill-intent of those very individuals.
The arguments against technology in the past get brushed off as people being averse to change, but this conveniently bypasses the very real harms that consolidated power in the hands of rich, white capitalist men inflict on artists who are not fairly compensated for their work; for union employees who are losing funding for their benefits; and the harms against consumers who are losing the protections they held through legal loopholes.
Support
One of the more common arguments in favor of physical media is the support it brings to these artists. While modern media technology can bring support to these creators—platforms like YouTube, Patreon, and even here on Substack that at the very least attempt to work with the artists providing the content that drives them—there are many platforms in the modern world which actively harming and working against artists, even if they claim to be doing otherwise.
A great example of this is Spotify. An early platform in music streaming, Spotify claimed to be helping artists profit from their music in an era of rampant piracy while providing a democratic arena for any musician to achieve success by way of algorithms that promote music the people—or rather, the people’s data—deem good. However, things are not as they seem, which comes as no surprise given Spotify was created as an advertising company, with music as an afterthought.
What Spotify tries to hide is that the algorithms promote the most profitable music. This is through many methods, such as artists paying for algorithmic promotion, special contracts with major labels to have their music promoted, or through the PFC (perfect fit content) music that proliferates in playlists, created by PFC companies that Spotify owns or has ties to. Spotify boasts about the amount of money they pay in royalties but obscures the fact that most of that goes back to them through their music or special discounted royalty rates in exchange for promotion on the platform.
Similar things happen with platforms like Netflix, which create low-budget content that their algorithm pushes harder to audiences because it’s cheaper for them than licensing media. The goal of these companies, as with many things in a capitalist economy, is profit at any cost, and this will always come out of the pockets of artists rather than their own.
This is made possible by technological advancements, which don’t have the same legislation in place that existing media formats do. Whether consumer or artist protections, technology companies innovate through loopholes that allow them to exploit people while the law catches up to include them in existing legal parameters. One of these important parameters that is not well-covered as of right now is ownership.
Ownership
Ownership is a major issue that has gotten less attention than it should have by now, although it is slowly gaining traction. What these companies do is license media for rent. Many people have given up on owning DVDs, CDs, books, etc. in favor of streaming, without realizing that it’s not a replacement. You continue to pay for access to your favorite media which can be taken away from you at a moment’s notice, no matter how much you’ve paid. These companies owe you nothing, and you agree to that when you click to confirm that you read the terms and conditions that you definitely didn’t read.
Many individuals have purchased books or movies digitally only to have them removed from their libraries without warning. You can pay all the money you want, but it does not guarantee you access to digital media, despite what that misleading “buy” or “purchase” button implies. If a piece of media is digital through a platform, you don’t own or control it. By continuing to fall for these marketing tricks, we are communicating to these companies that they can get away with this behavior.
That’s where physical media as consumer protection can come into play. When you buy a DVD, CD, book, etc. you physically own that item. You can watch, listen, read as you please. You can annotate the book, watch a movie or show on any TV with no login limitations, and not be tracked and marketed toward every time you listen to your favorite album.
These companies prey on scarcity mindsets that cause people to crave access to (allegedly) universal access to any media they could want, but this is yet another lie. Not only do these services not contain nearly as much media as they want consumers to believe, but people also don’t consume as much as they think. Humans get overwhelmed when presented with too many options, so we tend to revert to trusted favorites. Essentially, these streaming services are convincing us to pay for things we don’t even consume.
Physical media is far cheaper for the consumer, given that almost every one of the most streamed shows are long-running cable shows that are not streaming service exclusive. Buying a DVD box set of a show you watch frequently is far less costly than ongoing payments. You pay once and it’s yours for good (or rent from a library, supporting your local community for free!). This is also less costly for the environment, as data centers for storage, algorithms, and AI use far more energy than a one-time manufacture of a disc or book.
As bad as this all is, preying on human fears and vulnerabilities through promises of unlimited media access is not the only method used against consumers. They additionally prey on the human need for a sense of identity.
Identity
These capitalist corporations control everything, including consumers. Corporations have wrapped people around their fingers to the point that people don’t even realize their desires are so strongly shaped by what’s most profitable. This comes at the expense of quality, where more expensive media with high production costs and licensing fees are replaced by cheap, company-owned media that generate greater profit. And since these corporations can use their algorithms to push this low-quality, cheap media that caters to the lowest common denominator and label it as a recommendation based on your previous viewing habits, they can convince people to watch it. They are convinced that consumers won’t know or won’t care about the difference enough to act so long as the mind-numbing content is as convenient as possible. They are insulting consumers to their faces and asking them to pay for the pleasure.
Corporations have hooked people on constant media—or, more accurately, escapism—that the idea of going even a moment without music, video, etc. is unbearable. People will make excuses for their actions due to deeply ingrained manipulation; people will give up so much for convenience and frictionless life. However, it’s this lack of friction that has left people feeling lost. Without friction, people don’t have opportunities to make choices about what matters to them. They can’t form a sense of identity, and thus can’t form genuine connections with others, leading to exacerbating the loneliness that so many face today. You need to make choices for yourself to know who you are and what’s worth your time, energy, and money. But with the promise of all the world’s media available at a moment’s notice, people are prevented from deriving personal meaning from the media they consume, functioning solely to fill the silence in their lives with something other than their thoughts. Corporations have broken consumers to the point that they’ll accept content to fill the void instead of art to fill the soul.
A great loss of the era of digital media is the connections physical media brought. When you invest time, energy, and money into art that you decide means something to you, you feel more invested in the connections and communities that come with it, a positive form of sunk-cost fallacy. And with culture being so fractured by the promises of personalization, we are losing the ties that shape culture as a whole—a collective understanding of what art should mean and bring to those who consume it. Instead, we have a world being shaped by billionaire white men who seek to take all the money they can from people while stripping them of the things that bring life meaning.
Conclusion
The world doesn’t have to be like this. We have the power to stop this. We can decide to stop feeding the machines that shape the options being presented to us. We don’t have to accept corporations destroying the planet with their energy-wasting data centers filled with cheap, meaningless media and go back to buying a one-time manufactured copy of a favorite movie, show, album, or book that you have decided means enough to you to pay for. We can pay for media in forms that provide income to artists who need it, not to billionaires who use their profits to fund militaries that go on to harm others. We can give jobs back to human curators in radio stations, museums, and stores who are losing their income along with artists. We can seek out artists in our communities, diverse artists whose voices once opened us up to new perspectives and ideas but are being overtaken by the most privileged. The system being placed in front of us doesn’t serve people’s best interests, but we don’t have to accept that. We always have the power to make change if we fight for it.
Bearne, S. (2024, December 2). Why is vintage audio equipment booming? BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyjvn658n6o
Belanger, A. (2025, February 6). “Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right”: Meta emails unsealed. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-torrented-over-81-7tb-of-pirated-books-to-train-ai-authors-say/
Brickner-Wood, B. (2024, December 10). The hollow allure of spotify wrapped. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/the-hollow-allure-of-spotify-wrapped
Chayka, K. (2024a). Filterworld: How algorithms flattened culture. Vintage.
Chayka, K. (2024b, December 11). The year the creators took over. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2024-in-review/the-year-creators-took-over
CNBC. (2024, June 26). How youtube beat netflix and disney in the streaming wars [Video]. YouTube.
Elefante, J. (2023). Raising hell, living well: Freedom from influence in a world where everyone wants something from you. Ballantine Books.
Faverio, M. (2024, November 21). A majority of u.s. tiktok users are there for product reviews and recommendations. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/21/a-majority-of-us-tiktok-users-are-there-for-reviews-and-recommendations/
Film Theory. (2022, November 20). Film theory: Twitter’s toxic relationship with movies [Video]. YouTube.
Friss, E. (2024). The bookshop: A history of the anerican bookstore. Viking.
Future Proof. (2024, May 29). Why trends are getting shorter [Video]. YouTube.
Gasser, N. (2019). Why you like it: The science & culture of musical taste. Flatiron Books.
Gruenwedel, E. (2024, December 9). Ampere: Global streaming subs to top 2 billion by 2029. Media Play News. https://www.mediaplaynews.com/ampere-global-streaming-subs-to-top-2-billion-by-2029/
Harding, S. (2024, December 12). The optical disc onslaught continues, with lg quitting blu-ray players. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/the-optical-disc-onslaught-continues-with-lg-quitting-blu-ray-players/
Heller, M. & Salzman, J. (2021). Mine!: How the hidden rules of ownership control our lives. Anchor Books.
Hertz, N. (2021). The lonely century: How to restore human connection in a world that’s pulling apart. Currency.
Hickey, W. (2023). You are what you watch: How movies and tv affect everything. Workman.
How Money Works. (2025, January 13). The golden age of middlemen [Video]. YouTube.
Hsu, H. (2024, December 23). Is there any escape from the spotify syndrome? The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/30/mood-machine-liz-pelly-book-review
Jared Henderson. (2024, October 17). Why everyone stopped reading. [Video]. YouTube.
Kindahl, R. & Obsolete Media. (2024a, August 18). We need video stores now, more than ever. Obsolete Media.
Kindahl, R. & Obsolete Media. (2024b, November 25). Buying movies is now counter-cultural. Obsolete Media.
Lembke, A. (2021). Dopamine nation: Finding balance in the age of indulgence. Dutton.
Lorenz, T. (2023). Extremely online: The untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet. Simon & Schuster.
Marx, W. D. (2022). Status and culture: How our desire for social rank creates taste, identity, art, fashion, and constant change. Viking.
McDonald, G. (2024). You have not yet heard your favorite song: How streaming changes music. Canbury.
Milliot, J. (2024, November 6). B&n on track to open 60 bookstores this year. Publishers Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/96417-b-n-on-track-to-open-60-bookstores-this-year.html?ck_subscriber_id=2736314033
Milliot, J. (2025, January 10). Print book sales saw a small sales increase in 2024. Publishers Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/96842-print-book-sales-saw-a-small-sales-increase-in-2024.html
Montgomery, D. & Bialik, C. (2025, January 21). Trump’s inauguration, books, and ai. The Surveyor.
Mullainathan, S. & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: The new science of having less and how it defines our lives. Holt.
Nicole, C. (2023, May 7). Let’s talk social media’s ‘aesthetic’ obsession [Video]. YouTube.
Nicole, C. (2024, October 28). Everything is an aesthetic: How ‘aesthetics’ became our new religion [Video]. YouTube.
Nomad Over Normal. (2024, August 24). Physical media is cheaper than streaming [Video]. YouTube.
Parris, D. (2023, December 20). The rise, fall, and (slight) rise of dvds. A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2024a, March 13). Why I started rending dvds again: Quantifying a silly thing. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2024b, April 10). When do we stop finding new music? A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2024c, May 22). The broken economics of streaming services: A stats explainer. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2024d, September 18). Unpacking vinyl’s remarkable revival: A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2024e, December 11). The rise and (overstated) fall of radio. A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2025a, January 2). 6 reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic about movies in 2025: A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Parris, D. (2025b, February 5). How do music listening habits change with age? A statistical analysis. Stat Significant.
Passman, D. (2023). All you need to know about the music business. Simon & Schuster.
Pelly, L. (2024). Mood machine: The rise of spotify and the cost of the perfect playlist. Atria.
Petersen, A. H. (2024, December 15). Posting less. Culture Study.
Petrusich, A. (2014). Do not sell at any price: The wild, obsessive hunt for the world’s rarest 78 rmp records. Scribner.
Petrusich, A. (2024, June 17). Lizzy mcalpine wants to go offline. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/06/24/older-lizzy-mcalpine-music-review
Porter, R. (2025, January 27). The year of ‘bluey’: Kids’ favorite dominates 2024 year-end streaming chart. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/bluey-bridgerton-2024-year-end-streaming-charts-1236119192/
Riva, C. D. (2024a, July 11). The proper way to listen. Can’t Get Much Higher.
Riva, C. D. (2024b, August 22). Personalized lies. Can’t Get Much Higher.
Riva, C. D. (2025, February 13). Why did the cd die but the book lived? Can’t Get Much Higher.
Sax, D. (2022). The future is analog: How to create a more human world. PublicAffairs.
Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why less is more. Harper Perennial.
Ted Kutina. (2024, May 2). The importance of real things [Video]. YouTube.
The Wall Street Journal. (2023, March 3). Why barnes and noble is copying local bookstores it once threatened \ Wsj the economics of [Video]. YouTube.
TODAY. (2024, December 4). Why bookstores are booming even in the age of online shopping [Video]. YouTube.
Vardy, E. (2024, June 8). Adults and teens turn to ‘dumbphones’ to cut screen time. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7227njm45eo
Winter, J. (2024, March 28). Can we get kids off smartphones? The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-we-get-kids-off-smartphones
Yamada, K., Kaku, Y., & Taguchi, N. (2025, February 3). China’s gen-z drives digital camera market recovery in 2024. Nikkei Asia. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/China-s-Gen-Z-drives-digital-camera-market-recovery-in-2024