Physical Media, May it rest in peace Options

[Hobbes]

I've mentioned this to a few friends recently, and Mata's FaceBook post about the Kindle made me think about it again...

I'm a book-lover. And I mean both reading books, and having books. Libraries are wonderful, bookshops are glorious, and having my shelves full of books makes me feel better And that's mainly why I've not invested in a Kindle (or another e-reader). The physical properties of the traditional book are difficult to give up and, whilst I acknowledge how useful and convenient a Kindle is, I still can't bring myself to embrace it just yet. Similarly, music. Although I do own - and regularly use - an iPod, the majority of the music on it also happens to be on my shelves in CD form. Some of it is downloaded, but mainly when it doesn't actually exist in physical form. I have iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc. at my fingertips, but I still rather like having a CD, with a cover, and inlay, etc. And again, with movies. I never had THAT may videos (VHS), so the move to DVD wasn't particularly painful. But I don't own any download-only films. It's all on DVDs.

PC Games, however, I predominantly get via Steam now. Partly because many shops are just not stocking PC titles anymore, partly because only the newest releases seem to be available in stores, and partly because Steam has had some good deals over the last year. So whilst I still have some games on CD and DVD, I don't buy them in that format anymore.

Aside from clearly being materialistic, , the point I'm leading to is...

I think it's fair to say that there will soon be a generation that rarely uses physical-format media. Those formats might continue to exist, but the decline in their use is inevitable (and has already begun).

So what's my question, my burning issue to discuss? Is it whether we should mourn the loss of the physical-formats? Is it whether this will have an effect upon retail and our high streets? Is it whether it will create greater levels of piracy and digital crime?

No. My question is:

What the **** are people gonna put in their homes?! I mean, seriously. Nobody is going to need shelving because they won't have anything to put on it. Everyone is gonna have so much wallspace.

MENTAL!

[CrazyFooIAintGet...]

Good riddance.

But I don't think physical media is going away any time soon. Physical books are much easier to search through (by flicking through pages) compared to current e-reader thingies. I wouldn't buy anything for my kindle that I don't expect to read sequentially, but for most things it's great.

With movies you pretty much have to buy DVDs (unless you pirate everything), because copyright holders are dicks. There's a handful of services which provide online streaming but none of them have much content. Consumers get totally screwed over, since there is no one service you can subscribe to that will show everything you want to watch. Compare that to DVDs where any movie you can think of can be bought off amazon.

For music I have no need for CDs as I listen to everything on my computer, and I don't see any value in a small piece of artwork that's kept on a shelf all the time. Buying physical discs for a computer game is pointless too. I'm happy with steam, although I don't spend much time/money on games.