As commodious as streaming has made the consumption of medium , what ’s available to us today might not be uncommitted to us tomorrow — or maybe not in the way we remember it . We have no ownership over the content that we ’re consuming . alternatively , we ’re paying to get access to what streaming companies require to offer us , and they can transfer their mind whenever they feel like it .
Add to that the fact that 2024 was a knockout class for forcible medium . Best Buy stop sell disk in its computer memory and online , and by the final stage of the year , aBlu - ray player manufacturer discontinued productionof its product . There was also news swirling that vinyl sales had plummeted by 33 % in 2024 ( although it turns out that was due to achange in counting methodological analysis for vinyl radical sales , which are , in fact , up 6.2 % ) . If there ’s decline interest in owning physical media , as the Best Buy news would seem to indicate , what are we losing by switching over solely to streaming ? Should we be concerned that we have no ownership anymore over the things we observe , scan , and hear to ?
The impermanence of streaming
Netflix regularly culls its offerings . This could be for a variety of reasons — licensing deals might end , the content is n’t as democratic as hoped , or a work shift in scheme — but the effect is the same . We lose access to something we might have love .
But there are potential issues beyond a show being moved from one service to another by chance . When content solely go digitally in the swarm , edits can be made to it . At the Superbowl in 2024 , Alicia Keys was brought on as a guest during Usher ’s halftime show to performIf I Ai n’t fetch You . Those watching it live pick up her voice crack slightly as she sang the first word : Some . It was a completely understandable flub — it was the first matter she was peach , it was dusty , and , most importantly , she ’s human . She go bad on to have a sleek and dressed performance vocalizing with Usher .
If you go back and watch the official performance , though , the little voice fissure was replace by a take from one of the rehearsal . There ’s no evidence that anything went amiss . Is it a major issue , where corporate money has take out one over on the public ? Certainly not . But it ’s an instance that when we do n’t have ownership over our medium , those that do can make a modification for whatever reason they choose .
Let ’s take the alternative timeline where the originalStar Warstrilogy was only ever recorded digitally and distributed over cyclosis . If George Lucas had the opportunity to go back under those circumstances and make his limited version , there would have been no evidence to show who in the beginning shot first — Han or Greedo . With no forcible substantiation , such as laser saucer or VHS transcription off of a TV broadcast , the original moment would have been wipe from history .
Being the custodian
As Guillermo del Toroonce tweeted , “ Physical media is almost a Fahrenheit 451 [ where people memorized entire volume and thus became the book they be intimate ] level of responsibility . If you own a great 4 K HD , Blu - ray , DVD , etc . , etc . of a film or films you hump … you are the custodian of those film for generations to come . ”
In history , we ’ve been through purge of recorded mind by parties that did not concur with them . That could be the reaction of John Lennon ’s quote about the Beatles and Jesus leave in the destruction of Beatles records , or the book - burn Säuberung by the Nazi party in the 1930s to destroy schoolbook and literature that were deemed “ un - German . ”
Much like books before vinyl , charismatic tape , or compact saucer entered our homes , the cyclosis content we consume document our history and how our society processes and reacts to what ’s happening in the world . for sure , there are Bond moving-picture show or terpsichore tracks whose primary design is to harbour or act as the soundtrack for a night of fun , but for every natural process spectacle , there ’s aParis is burn . For every song of teenage heartache there ’s aSunday Bloody Sunday .
When the ideas are hold within books that survive within hundreds of thousands of home , it ’s difficult to pick up every last one and eradicate them from the Earth . But if the copies be only in the swarm , it takes but the clicking of a mouse by one bad thespian to never see or take heed them again .
Anecdotally from conversations I ’ve had , it seems like the immature generation — that grew up environ by the digital world , online relationship , and their depicted object only in the cloud — is pulling away a bit from living online . It could be as a reaction to having to always be “ on ” with social medium , or a distrust of the corporate culture that wants to control as many aspects of our lives as potential . Could they be the one that move us back toward strong-arm media , if not wholly , as a accessory to digital ?
It ’s important that there are custodians in the earthly concern to herald survive fine art into the future . And it ’s important that there are touchable versions of that art — in write kind , transcription , or on magnetic disk and cellulose . Plus , the disc recordings look and go better than the streaming versions anyway .
