The last 12 months have seen a notable rise in people seeking out and consuming physical media over using streaming services. This could be for many reasons, like the cost of subscriptions going up, the sheer amount of services available (each with exclusive content) and the fact that we don’t actually own or have control over how long the content is available for.
In a recent post, I talked about more people seeking an offline and analog lifestyle, something reminiscent of the 1990’s – early 2000 era, when life was simpler and physical media was one of the main ways in which we consumed media (outside of just watching the limited TV Stations available at the time). Though I talk about a few different areas where people are going more analog and give a few tips and suggestions on how you can too. You can check that post out here if you would like to.
This post (the one you are reading now) is the first part of a series I will be sharing about physical and offline media. In this post, I will be talking to you about ‘Why I am personally going back to offline and physical media’. In part 2, I will be sharing some ‘Tips on building your own physical media collection.’
Why I Am Going Back to Physical Media
Here are a few reasons why I am going back to watching and listening offline:
Too Many Subscription Services and Content Being Unavailable to Stream or Rent Online.
There are so many entertainment subscription services these days; it’s getting a little bit crazy if you ask me. Every day it feels like another streaming platform is available, with its own exclusive content, and it’s getting very expensive. Originally, these platforms promised to offer us hundreds of titles for an affordable price, but now these services are upping their subscription prices, which means if you are signed up to a few of them, it’s no longer $10 a month per subscription, its $20 + per month per subscription. Which adds up and makes it no longer affordable to have all these subscription services.
I have been finding that I get really bad decision paralysis scrolling through 100s of options and finding nothing to watch. And there are times when I want to rent or watch a particular movie or TV show that might be exclusive to a particular service that I do not have a subscription to (and don’t want to sign up for just to watch it), or it might not be available to watch anywhere online.
While going back to physical media means I have fewer options, I can track down most of these physically and own them, with no risk of them being taken away, and I can watch them any time without having to outlay any more money. I will touch more on this in the next section.
Ownership
More and more of our lives have turned online or digital. And the content we consume through the various apps we pay for isn’t actually ours; even if you purchase a game, book or movie digitally, it could still be taken away from you at any time. (This happened recently for customers of a big tech company whose licensing deal ended, pulling hundreds of movies and shows from their service. Even though people had paid for these, they now won’t have access to them at all.)
Physical media means you have personal ownership of a movie, TV show, music or book in your possession. It cannot be easily taken away from you or changed.*
(Though modern video games are a different story; even though you may own a physical copy of a game, they often need digital updates, or the cartridge/disc may be nothing more than a tool to signal a download from the internet. Which means in the future some of them may be essentially useless. Retro games that don’t require the internet for updating are different, but you may need a dedicated console to play them on.)
I want to own my media again; I want to curate a collection of my favourite music, movies and TV shows. I have also been going back to reading books physically more than reading e-books, as a means of spending less time on screens. And I’ve been purchasing digital Audiobooks through Libro.Fm , who allows me to download my audiobooks DRM-free as Mp3 files, meaning that I can back them up and listen to them offline without the need to listen to them through an app.
(*This does not mean you have the copyright ownership of that media. It just means that you have personal ownership of that item and that you can keep it for personal use without it being physically removed from your possession.)
Tangibility and Intentionality
One of the things we lose when accessing things digitally is tangibility. Taking a disc out of a case and putting it in your CD or DVD player is tangible, but it’s also intentional. It’s the same as picking up a physical book, feeling the paper and the smell of the pages.
Having too much to choose from can sometimes lead to procrastination; we end up spending more time scrolling than actually watching or listening to anything. By having a curated collection, we can be more intentional with our choices.
I have been really enjoying picking an album to put on in the morning while I am getting ready for the day or while doing some housework. It’s about the tangible experience of opening a CD and putting it in my stereo, but also making an intentional choice of what I am in the mood for. My curated collection means I am less overwhelmed by choice and more likely to engage with media instead of giving up from decision paralysis.
I have also been watching a lot of movies and TV shows from my DVD collection instead of watching them through streaming services. I have quite a few different nostalgic movies and TV shows that I grew up with, and it has been really enjoyable going down memory lane without being connected to the internet
Not Being Sold To or Having My Data Tracked
Recommendations can be great, but when we are consuming content online these days, how do we know that these are proper recommendations and not something that hasn’t been paid to be recommended to us? Is it actually a recommendation based on other things we consume, or is it an advertisement?
(And yes, DVDs may often include trailers for other movies or TV shows at the start, but they don’t interrupt what you are watching and you can often skip past them if you want to.)
Another example is E-books, some services are more about selling you more books than encouraging you to read what you have already purchased. (We also don’t technically own these either. Digital content like e-books is purchased under a licence, which means that they can also be removed from our accounts or devices without our knowledge, even though we paid money for them (Like the movies I mentioned earlier.)
The current era of technology also comes with a lot of data tracking, and often this data may be used in ways we are unaware of, like feeding AI databases and having it sold to third-party companies without our knowledge, etc. Going back to physical and offline media means that we can consume without being worried about having our data tracked.
Individualism
I have found that social media and algorithms have really skewed my sense of what I actually like because things were really hyped up (like the latest big book releases, or really popular ones) or talked about, so I felt that I had to have things that I ended up not liking at all. I ended up feeling lost and unsure about a lot of things and buying things just because everyone else was. ( Though I will admit that seeing other people going back to physical media as well is what inspired me to do the same, but I am trying to remain intentional with my purchases and mainly purchasing things that I already know I like.)
By limiting access to social media and the internet, I am going back to discovering things the old-fashioned way, which has helped me get my sense of what I like back. I still experiment and try new things, but I try to be more intentional about it. (Like buying CDs second-hand has allowed me to experiment without worrying about how much I am spending per Album. If I end up not liking it, then I haven’t spent too much, and I can pass it on to someone else or donate it for someone else to find.)
These are just a few of the reasons ‘Why I am going back to physical and offline media.’
I am learning to be more intentional with my choices, and I love listening to music again, either by popping a CD in or choosing from my own offline digital library. Or picking a movie or show from my collection to watch. I’ve been spending a lot of time consuming very nostalgic media lately- music, movies and TV shows that I loved growing up. It’s been great.
In part 2 of this series, I will be sharing a few tips on starting your own physical media collection.
But until then, I hope you enjoyed reading this post.
Erin
Disclaimer – This post is not sponsored and doesn’t contain any affiliate links; any links included are for reference only in case you are interested in checking out a mentioned link or purchasing a reviewed product. Check out my full Disclaimers here, including AI use on my blog.
Credits: I don’t own the copyright to the media featured in the photos in this post; it is owned by its respective copyright owners.
I have done my best to look up who owns these, but It’s not always easy to find that for all of them but I have done my best to figure that out.
Featured Media image 1 & 4: Avril Lavigne’s Album ‘Let Go’ (Arista Records/Sony Music)
Featured Media in Image 2: Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks (Disney), Annie 1981 (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment), Fly Away Home (Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment), Madeline (Tristar Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment), Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Stupid Zebra, LLC/Walden Media), Wonder Park (Paramount Pictures), Disney’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Disney), Drive Me Crazy (20th Century Fox/20th Century Studios/Disney), Sweet Home Alabama (Touchstone Pictures/Disney), Anastasia (20th Century Fox/20th Century Studios/Disney), Coyote Ugly (Jerry Bruckheimer/TouchStone Pictures/Disney), Will & Grace season 1 (NBC), Disney’s The Haunted Mansion (Disney) and Stargate (the original movie)(MGM Studios/Amazon).
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