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.

[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...)

[BigMistake]

I'm gonna be honest and say that I pirate music, movies and games. But I also buy music, movies and games. Thats before we even get into the music, movies and games merchandise. I love the fact that you can get almost anything digital. I prefer most things to be digital, with the only exception being books.

[JimiJimi]

I'm gonna be honest and say that I pirate music, movies and games. But I also buy music, movies and games. Thats before we even get into the music, movies and games merchandise. I love the fact that you can get almost anything digital. I prefer most things to be digital, with the only exception being books.

But CDs are digital

I've ripped all my CDs to my laptop, but only due to the impracticality of bringing hundreds of CDs to uni, and when I'm at home I'll always get the CD out (which is a whole lot faster than booting up a computer), but it's highlighted a lot of advantages of digital formats. You can't hit ctrl+F a book to find that particular bit you liked, and you avoid the disaster of opening a CD case to find the disc isn't in there. And you can't scratch an mp3 (having said that, you can scratch your hard drive, and then you lose a whole lot more than just one album). But I like the physical...ness of CDs, even if it costs more and takes up more space and I end up with way more CD racks than I have space for. It's like George Carlin's "stuff" routine, I can't help but accumulate stuff so I can store my collection of stuff in them.

[BigMistake]

I'm gonna be honest and say that I pirate music, movies and games. But I also buy music, movies and games. Thats before we even get into the music, movies and games merchandise. I love the fact that you can get almost anything digital. I prefer most things to be digital, with the only exception being books.

But CDs are digital

I've ripped all my CDs to my laptop, but only due to the impracticality of bringing hundreds of CDs to uni, and when I'm at home I'll always get the CD out (which is a whole lot faster than booting up a computer), but it's highlighted a lot of advantages of digital formats. You can't hit ctrl+F a book to find that particular bit you liked, and you avoid the disaster of opening a CD case to find the disc isn't in there. And you can't scratch an mp3 (having said that, you can scratch your hard drive, and then you lose a whole lot more than just one album). But I like the physical...ness of CDs, even if it costs more and takes up more space and I end up with way more CD racks than I have space for. It's like George Carlin's "stuff" routine, I can't help but accumulate stuff so I can store my collection of stuff in them.

Thats what collectors editions of games are for! \o/

[Witless]

Hobbes, I feel the same with books as you, so I decided to let my OCD logical side come up with a solution. What I have decided is that if I want the hard back copy of the book I'll buy the physical book. But if its a paper back book I'd carry around everywhere until it looked like it'd been attacked by a lawnmower I tend to ebook it.

It's a solution that has worked out well. I tend to buy more hard backs now than I used to since I'm not worried about being tempted to carry them around with me because I have a digital archive of books I can read with me at all times. My hard backs look all pristine and it makes my bookshelf look posh which is nice.

[froggle-rock]

I'm on the look for a handbag that fits my Kindle snugly. This is what I shall fill my home with: fashion items that purposely fit my gadgets and gizmos. I am a bit frustrated that no shops list the inner dimensions of handbags.

[Phantom]

I'm not a fan at all of having to much stuff, every six months or so I throw away pretty much everything and start overnew with collecting things I currently like, ( I have to admit I mostly only allow myself to buy stuff that is useful, like stuff for the kitchen, though the female catch for me is that it can look nice and to my liking I will spend more time looking for something I prefer to another item more than other people tend to do).
I don't have a lot of CDs anymore especially not since I moved countries and I had to carry a bag with everything I wanted to own in England..... The bags (3 in total, one was a trolly... Yay....) where very heavy, so no need for me to put in things like DVDs or CDs.
Although not liking to own to many items I do have to point out I take a lot of pride in what I do own.... Like my super Mario Nintendo ds holder stand thing

Okay I'm straying... I mostly only listen to music via YouTube and my mp3 player. I only have a couple of books since I am awfull in reading and it takes ages, most of my books also as my stuff contain useful information (like my books I bought in and for uni). And I stream most of the films, though I do have a DVD collection, also we have love film so streaming if pretty easy, and if not available in the watch now, ordering for rent is pretty easy and quick. So no need to expand my DVD collection.


Mmmm I think I'm straying again. I would gadget and geek up my house with nifty cool things that look cool as to having shelves with DVDs, CDs, books and dust.