Owning physical media is more important than ever

Owning physical media is more important than ever; moreover, DRM is evil.

If you purchase your movies/music through Amazon, Spotify, SiriusXM, AppleTV, &c. you really only purchase a license for use that can be revoked at any time. This makes your media access fragile: your access to the things you have purchased is one inter-corporation lawsuit away from being revoked.

Whether or not you should be consuming mass-produced, copyrighted media is another question, but purchasing (i.e., legally obtaining) DRM-free versions of your media has never been easier. In fact, buying/ripping CDs or downloading music from Qobuz can be cheaper than a spotify subscription. These days, you can even play Blu-ray discs from the command line. (Generally speaking, you can find most Blu-ray disks on eBay for less than the digital asking prices for the same movies!)

So, the point I’m making is that purchasing media like people did 15 years ago is better than the current system. The trade-off of course is that you lose the convenience of streaming, but is it that much of a convenience anyway? I think the healthy approach, the one that most self-effacing people would agree with, is to interact with the digital sphere intentionally.