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> I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership. I applaud your idealism, but with this attitude, you might as well not buy any apps at all. When you buy a

> I for one hate renting things, I prefer ownership. I applaud your idealism, but with this attitude, you might as well not buy any apps at all. When you buy an app, or TV show, or pretty much anything digital in 2016, you're purchasing a license, not the thing itself. You don't "own" anything. Even if you can download the app you buy in 2016 in 5 years from now, what are the odds that it still works on whatever operating system is still available, on your 2016 hardware? What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own?

alttab 10y ago
I still buy Blu Ray box sets. I own the shit out of those, and can watch Indiana Jones when the power is out as long as my generator is running.
- theli0nheart 10y ago
  I would not consider a Blu Ray box set "digital" in any way. That's a physical item that you physically place into a physical player.
  - alttab 10y ago
    Fair enough. I suppose as long as there are mainstream high quality non-digital alternatives then we should take those. I agree nothing I have digital rights to is "owned" by me. It's not like asking "ah don't like coal or nuclear power? Go live in a cave."
khedoros 10y ago
I expect everything on my phone to be throw-away, beyond the life of that specific device (with the possible exception of the things that I've got as apk's and can sideload). I expect a thing on my PC to be available as some form of install medium that I'll have free access to while the service it came from is still running, and that I'll be able to install from that medium when the service goes defunct. The exception to this is most games...but I only pay prices similar to what I would've to rent it from Blockbuster for a couple days, so I don't feel to bad about the long term rental. I pay subscriptions for a few TV-related things (Netflix+Amazon for me, DirecTv for the wife). If I really expect to want to watch the shows at some point in the future, I'll buy a copy. If I buy them, it's on a medium that I can format-shift at my convenience and get to run on arbitrary devices (which usually means DVD and the subset of Blurays with released keys). > What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own? I've never run into this in a practical sense, but it's an excellent point in the theoretical one. I keep around enough old hardware and software to make it a non-issue.
umanwizard 10y ago
This isnt unique to 2016; it has been true since the invention of copyright.

alttab 10y ago

I still buy Blu Ray box sets. I own the shit out of those, and can watch Indiana Jones when the power is out as long as my generator is running.

theli0nheart 10y ago
I would not consider a Blu Ray box set "digital" in any way. That's a physical item that you physically place into a physical player.
- alttab 10y ago
  Fair enough. I suppose as long as there are mainstream high quality non-digital alternatives then we should take those. I agree nothing I have digital rights to is "owned" by me. It's not like asking "ah don't like coal or nuclear power? Go live in a cave."

khedoros 10y ago

I expect everything on my phone to be throw-away, beyond the life of that specific device (with the possible exception of the things that I've got as apk's and can sideload). I expect a thing on my PC to be available as some form of install medium that I'll have free access to while the service it came from is still running, and that I'll be able to install from that medium when the service goes defunct. The exception to this is most games...but I only pay prices similar to what I would've to rent it from Blockbuster for a couple days, so I don't feel to bad about the long term rental. I pay subscriptions for a few TV-related things (Netflix+Amazon for me, DirecTv for the wife). If I really expect to want to watch the shows at some point in the future, I'll buy a copy. If I buy them, it's on a medium that I can format-shift at my convenience and get to run on arbitrary devices (which usually means DVD and the subset of Blurays with released keys). > What good is ownership when you can't even use what you own? I've never run into this in a practical sense, but it's an excellent point in the theoretical one. I keep around enough old hardware and software to make it a non-issue.

umanwizard 10y ago

This isnt unique to 2016; it has been true since the invention of copyright.