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People are buying physical media again to protect their data, support artists and keep permanent access to films and music as streaming services remove titles and raise prices.
People are returning to CDs, DVDs, vinyl and cassette tapes to escape algorithmically curated streaming, according to a new collection of reader responses. Some want a physical copy of favourite films and music that cannot be removed or interrupted.
Others value the sound of a needle on vinyl, the click of a cassette player and the ability to interact with a physical format. Ash, 52, a university lecturer from Cornwall, embraced streaming before tempering his enthusiasm. He says algorithms make great suggestions but it feels like catching a lot of small fish. Reading music magazines, following artist recommendations and discovering music yourself takes more work and effort.
Ash embraces physical media collection
He says it feels like catching the bigger fish. Ash has returned to buying and listening to physical media and has amassed more than 5,000 records and CDs from 1990 to 2009. He says technology and streaming felt liberating for someone with a deep music collection and a bad back, so he stopped buying and streamed instead.
But he spent more time making playlists than listening to music, lost the ability to hear a whole album and missed the physical connection with music. He listens to records as an activity, while listening through technology feels more passive, like wallpaper rather than a work of art. CJ, 55, a compliance manager from Atlanta, returned to physical media when shows she liked began disappearing from streaming services.
She cites HBO removing about 200 episodes of Sesame Street in 2022, which made her realise any media she wanted to keep could be gone with no way to get it back. As the saying goes, if you cannot hold it, you do not own it, and she firmly agrees. There are many shows not on streaming platforms that she wants to rewatch, so she scours flea markets and secondhand shops for hard-to-find shows and movies.
CJ has also continued to buy CDs. When access to media is so easy to cut off, it makes sense to own what you can so no one can take it away. Some people have begun buying secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services. Ruth, 67, a retired professor from Michigan, was quickly bored by Spotify, but other reasons drove her move to CDs and DVDs.
Ruth seeks privacy and artist support
Most of all, she wanted to own her music and support the musicians. She owns 5,300 CDs, which have their own walk-in closet. Owning her own books, music and photos, with no iCloud, has always seemed normal to her and increasingly prudent. She adds that no algorithm is as creative as a well-stocked human brain alive to its actual surroundings.
Ruth also rents physical film titles by mail from a store in Seattle. She retired to a rural area where the internet is unreliable for streaming and would not sustain a movie without interruptions and buffering. Music can be streamed from the internet, although even then the connection will conk out every once in a while. This summer, Antonio, 40, began buying secondhand CDs from a charity shop to get off music subscription services.
The software engineer from Reading says he has a ritual now. Twice a month he buys between one and 10 CDs, depending on what is available. He decided he did not want to rely on a subscription any more or deal with price rises, and now he does not have to share his data with a company. Antonio says that data includes personal information such as his name, bank account details and location, as well as his listening history.
Antonio reduces corporate data sharing
Nowadays people hand over so much data, intentionally or unintentionally, to big corporations. If he can reduce it in any way, he is more than happy to do so. Quinn, 26, began collecting cassette tapes last year and quickly fell in love with it. He works nights and weekends, leaving little time to go to concerts.
Buying tapes from bands gave him a way to engage with and support them despite not being able to see their shows. Quinn works in food delivery and lives in Washington. Quinn really appreciates the format restrictions. There is the routine of interacting with the tape and equipment to play it, the quirks that come with analogue technology and the ability to share music by handing someone a tape rather than a Spotify link.
His switch comes with a desire to choose what he engages with. Rather than having content presented to him, he seeks it out himself or finds it through friends, which he says is a huge part of being low-tech. Sometimes he is out of the loop, but he prefers it. Tim, 61, an academic who lives in Stockholm, says his young and adult children all enjoy watching films on older formats.
Tim enjoys analog family time
In Sweden many people have a summer house. Theirs is on the mainland, a 45-minute drive from Stockholm at the southern end of the Swedish archipelago. It contains a video projector from around 2010, a DVD player and a collection of DVDs watched by his big kids when they were small.
The biggest luxury for his small kids is when the cables are rigged, the choice of DVD is made, and they sit through five minutes of coming soon on Disney before pressing play on Shrek or whatever the film is. Tim says he loves this middle stage between the digital and the analogue, and the slowness of the setup to see the films.
The next step is to open the trunk containing his younger partner's childhood VHS collection, and they will see where that goes. Sophie, 32, a librarian from Los Angeles, does stream music but mostly listens to CDs. She also often watches DVDs. The responses show a common desire to protect data, support artists and retain control of one's choices amid changing streaming catalogues and subscription costs.
Streaming Algorithms Cds Dvds Vinyl Media Ownership Subscription Services
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