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You're exactly right and this really hammered it home for me; the generation today is not into owning a physical piece of media. In the 70's, owning an LP was

You're exactly right and this really hammered it home for me; the generation today is not into owning a physical piece of media. In the 70's, owning an LP was awesome (and necessary) because there was usually some effort put into the artwork. Today, no one wants to own a mass produced DVD/BluRay Disc with shitty artwork and no liner notes. Some CD's still come with good artwork, but the generation now values owning digital media.

Unseelie 15y ago
> the generation now values owning digital media I think you've missed the point, it isn't about ownership at all, or even that the media is digital. Its that what we value is access to the media. We're willing to pay a nominal fee for access to it, but that's really all we care about: Having the media play when we want it to. Ownership of the media is irrelevant to our experience of the media...unless not owning it means we cannot experience it.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  Yes, this was what I was getting at. I don't want or need to have some physical object that tells me "this is my media". We've been through enough format changes to understand that "this is my media for ten years, then I'll need to convert it or buy it again." Access is the key, not ownership. That being said, I am deeply concerned about central media control allowing companies and governments to become revisionist; editing out controversial portions of various works as they see fit. I would like to see legislation that would prevent that.
  - Blarat 15y ago
    >We've been through enough format changes to understand that "this is my media for ten years, then I'll need to convert it or buy it again." Access is the key, not ownership. I guess this is what the RIAA/MPAA doesn't like with the streaming business, they can't resell the same material every time a new standard comes out.
vishaldpatel 15y ago
I think that it isn't the value of digital media that has increased... no one values something that is readily available. It is the value of LPs that has significantly decreased in the face of the convenience that digital media provides.
code_duck 15y ago
I'ma bit older than the current generation, and I'm not into owning physical media. Packaged software has seemed obsolete for at least 10 years, and packaged CDs or DVDs just seem absurd. Currently, a CD is a one time vessel to transport high quality audio to my computer to turn into MP3s. I've used the CD drive on my two year old MacBook exactly twice. Buying a CD to get music just seems absurd, but I do like accompanying media. I'd love if my favorite bands would mail me a glossy pamphlet when I bought an album, that is more exciting than a downloadable pamphlet. My brother, on the other hand, is a bit older and fetishizes music packages. He still has a giant shelf of cassettes, a rack of records, and a huge row of CDs, elaborately alphabetized.
- Apocryphon 15y ago
  I'm of the current generation, and I'm into owning CDs. As far as music goes, burned albums have been around since middle school and earlier, but to me having the actual jewel case signifies ownership and support of the artist, even if I mostly listen to their music on an mp3 player. But that's just my thing; DVDs I care much less about. I do value physical books significantly, though. The difference is, of course, is that a stack of dead trees is independent of electricity (unlike CDs or DVDs) yet has higher resolution than anything electronic.
  - dailyrorschach 15y ago
    For me, as a member of that current generation, I value highly my ownership of digital files. I can't get into things like Rdio, I love Pandora for just throwing on like a radio though. But when it comes to my music collection, I've been gathering these MP3s for something like 13 years now. And many of my most valued recordings are audience/soundboard recordings of live shows, something the current services don't really offer.
    - Apocryphon 15y ago
      I see. Perhaps the 'generation' that comes after you will be the people who treasure their AmazonBook Cloudplex Music and Pandora.FM accounts, and reject beaming music directly into their minds.
masklinn 15y ago
> but the generation now values owning digital media. It's not necessarily that the generation does not value physical ownership anymore, but that there rarely is any value left in physical ownership. This is the case in just about any digital media: a few years ago, video games came in big cardboard boxes lush with items, with big manuals and interesting artwork, etc... Today, they generally come in plastic DVD cases with a 2-leave "booklets" which isn't worth the cost of the paper it's printed on, and even "collector" editions are garbage. There are exceptions to this trend: The Witcher II on the video game side, or some deluxe packages (NiN's Ghosts I-IV "Deluxe" and "Ultra-Deluxe" limited editions were awesome, so were Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse's DNOTS book package and Sigur Rós's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, as far as I'm concerned) but by and large physical ownership is worthless, because there is no additional value in it[0] compared to purely digital. edit: and there usually is a severe loss in usability (you have to install or transcode the physical media to your digital devices), plus no gain (most DRM-laden purely-digital media tend to be DRM-laden as physical products as well, so physical ownership is just a shiny box for your virtual leasing). [0] not completely true for music, services or artists offering lossless tracks are few and far between overall, so while I've pretty much entirely switched to non-physical ownership for video games (via GoG and Steam), I usually go with physical for music, but my motivations to do so are not the most common: I consume my music with an album or artist granularity (I never buy single songs), I value the lossless quality (CD or above) as a backup source and I don't mind waiting for music (I don't buy huge amounts of it and tend to go "all out" when I do, getting the complete discography of a given artist in one fell swoop)
adestefan 15y ago
I buy CDs because I find value in paying $10-12 for a CD that I'll listen to multiple times. There are CDs that I bought 15 years ago that I still listen to multiple times in a year or even a month. I do not buy DVDs because I find no value in paying $30 for something I'll watch once and then let sit in a box somewhere. Instead, I pay Netflix $8 a month to watch a a couple movie or TV series in a month. I don't have something lingering around on a shelf taking up space I'll never use again and I think $8 is a reasonable price.

Unseelie 15y ago

> the generation now values owning digital media I think you've missed the point, it isn't about ownership at all, or even that the media is digital. Its that what we value is access to the media. We're willing to pay a nominal fee for access to it, but that's really all we care about: Having the media play when we want it to. Ownership of the media is irrelevant to our experience of the media...unless not owning it means we cannot experience it.

Lewisham 15y ago
Yes, this was what I was getting at. I don't want or need to have some physical object that tells me "this is my media". We've been through enough format changes to understand that "this is my media for ten years, then I'll need to convert it or buy it again." Access is the key, not ownership. That being said, I am deeply concerned about central media control allowing companies and governments to become revisionist; editing out controversial portions of various works as they see fit. I would like to see legislation that would prevent that.
- Blarat 15y ago
  >We've been through enough format changes to understand that "this is my media for ten years, then I'll need to convert it or buy it again." Access is the key, not ownership. I guess this is what the RIAA/MPAA doesn't like with the streaming business, they can't resell the same material every time a new standard comes out.

vishaldpatel 15y ago

I think that it isn't the value of digital media that has increased... no one values something that is readily available. It is the value of LPs that has significantly decreased in the face of the convenience that digital media provides.

code_duck 15y ago

I'ma bit older than the current generation, and I'm not into owning physical media. Packaged software has seemed obsolete for at least 10 years, and packaged CDs or DVDs just seem absurd. Currently, a CD is a one time vessel to transport high quality audio to my computer to turn into MP3s. I've used the CD drive on my two year old MacBook exactly twice. Buying a CD to get music just seems absurd, but I do like accompanying media. I'd love if my favorite bands would mail me a glossy pamphlet when I bought an album, that is more exciting than a downloadable pamphlet. My brother, on the other hand, is a bit older and fetishizes music packages. He still has a giant shelf of cassettes, a rack of records, and a huge row of CDs, elaborately alphabetized.

Apocryphon 15y ago
I'm of the current generation, and I'm into owning CDs. As far as music goes, burned albums have been around since middle school and earlier, but to me having the actual jewel case signifies ownership and support of the artist, even if I mostly listen to their music on an mp3 player. But that's just my thing; DVDs I care much less about. I do value physical books significantly, though. The difference is, of course, is that a stack of dead trees is independent of electricity (unlike CDs or DVDs) yet has higher resolution than anything electronic.
- dailyrorschach 15y ago
  For me, as a member of that current generation, I value highly my ownership of digital files. I can't get into things like Rdio, I love Pandora for just throwing on like a radio though. But when it comes to my music collection, I've been gathering these MP3s for something like 13 years now. And many of my most valued recordings are audience/soundboard recordings of live shows, something the current services don't really offer.
  - Apocryphon 15y ago
    I see. Perhaps the 'generation' that comes after you will be the people who treasure their AmazonBook Cloudplex Music and Pandora.FM accounts, and reject beaming music directly into their minds.

masklinn 15y ago

> but the generation now values owning digital media. It's not necessarily that the generation does not value physical ownership anymore, but that there rarely is any value left in physical ownership. This is the case in just about any digital media: a few years ago, video games came in big cardboard boxes lush with items, with big manuals and interesting artwork, etc... Today, they generally come in plastic DVD cases with a 2-leave "booklets" which isn't worth the cost of the paper it's printed on, and even "collector" editions are garbage. There are exceptions to this trend: The Witcher II on the video game side, or some deluxe packages (NiN's Ghosts I-IV "Deluxe" and "Ultra-Deluxe" limited editions were awesome, so were Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse's DNOTS book package and Sigur Rós's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, as far as I'm concerned) but by and large physical ownership is worthless, because there is no additional value in it[0] compared to purely digital. edit: and there usually is a severe loss in usability (you have to install or transcode the physical media to your digital devices), plus no gain (most DRM-laden purely-digital media tend to be DRM-laden as physical products as well, so physical ownership is just a shiny box for your virtual leasing). [0] not completely true for music, services or artists offering lossless tracks are few and far between overall, so while I've pretty much entirely switched to non-physical ownership for video games (via GoG and Steam), I usually go with physical for music, but my motivations to do so are not the most common: I consume my music with an album or artist granularity (I never buy single songs), I value the lossless quality (CD or above) as a backup source and I don't mind waiting for music (I don't buy huge amounts of it and tend to go "all out" when I do, getting the complete discography of a given artist in one fell swoop)

adestefan 15y ago

I buy CDs because I find value in paying $10-12 for a CD that I'll listen to multiple times. There are CDs that I bought 15 years ago that I still listen to multiple times in a year or even a month. I do not buy DVDs because I find no value in paying $30 for something I'll watch once and then let sit in a box somewhere. Instead, I pay Netflix $8 a month to watch a a couple movie or TV series in a month. I don't have something lingering around on a shelf taking up space I'll never use again and I think $8 is a reasonable price.