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!

[JimiJimi]

I have to confess I'm not a book lover. I try to read them occasionally but the whole reading experience is confusing and difficult and takes me a few months (if I even finish the book at all), not sure what's up with that

But I totally agree on the CD front - I take a bizarre pride in my ever-growing CD collection, and I hope that digital formats don't entirely obliterate CD production. My hi-fi sits at the foot of my bed, and I love sitting there listening to a CD with the liner notes in my hand, looking at the artwork, reading the lyrics. Even moreso with vinyl records (but the trade-off is the hiss and the crackle and the pops that any record that hasn't been stored in a temperature-controlled vacuum suspended in a strong magnetic field will eventually fall victim to). I've never downloaded an album, and I rarely download songs unless it's something really specific.

Meanwhile, my friends have no problem with torrenting music, saying that it's just try-before-you-buy ("if I like it, I'll buy a CD!"), which is a little bit hard to believe when they're downloading 10 gigabytes of an artist's entire back catalogue because of that one song that was on the radio which was pretty good. I know the music industry is unfair and exploits musicians who get barely any money from sales, but at least they get something. Boycotting the music industry and torrenting music won't cause the industry to change - the big record companies will just ramp up their prices and give an even smaller cut to the artists. Then the industry collapses and musicians are forced to find other means of selling their music, and get nowhere near the level of support/publicity/exposure/marketing that they get from a record company. Musicians have to make a living somehow, too.

I went way off on a tangent there, sorry. Erm, I think what I was saying is that the industry needs to change, but torrenting music instead of buying it is a bad way of going about it. Maybe support independent record labels so that the major labels rethink their strategies? I dunno.

(Sorry for bumping, but I'm not sure what counts as bumping when the forum is fairly inactive...)