#digital-only

I’ve been asleep but I woke up pretty early and no joke.

I just sat and stared at my small collection of physical media for over an hour. Just looking at all the tangible to hold in my hands physical cases with art on them.

Games from several generations of console gaming.

Nintendo

XBOX

PlayStation.

DVDS/Blurays that are obscure but beloved movies.

And hundreds of CDs that I could never find again.

With PlayStation’s recent announcement that they are discontinuing physical games, we are truly at the end of an era that is still so near and dear to our hearts and all I could do was just sit there and stare at all that I had in physical media and wonder how long it’ll be before I can play any of them physically for the very last time again.

You realize that from that point we won’t own anything.

It might not be what they call it but we’ll be essentially renting TV art/entertainment media now. Purchasing the license to temporarily play or use that media but not actually ever own it as a product in itself. Insane.

Everything will literally be temporarily accessible and usable and then once that license is up, nothing more.

That’s what we’re moving into for everything in visual/audial media now. Even if you download it to a hardrive/solid state drive digitally - you’ve only got it as long as it’s functional because you can’t back it up as physical.

The option to do that is being taken away from us now.

This is so much bigger than we can possibly understand at this moment because we’re so used to owning what we buy that we don’t think of “buying” any other way than legally purchasing the product itself because you can’t do that digitally indefinitely. Not as a download, not as a stream, not as a rent. It’s not fully owned by you and I think what Big Tech companies are trying to drill into us now is that we never really did own them.

We know that’s not true but how many of us are going to just lie down and take that as truth? How many of us will actually protest what we’re being told about this?

Phasing out physical media completely means no control or agency over our legally purchased media.

It means they’re stealing from us because they’re taking back what rightfully belongs to us. Sure we should be paying a small free to temporary play or use the license but that should never be the only option because they can revoke that access from you at any time and they will providing how it services them and their needs. Meaning it’s no longer about consumers’ experiences and engagement. It’s corporate interest.

And when it’s media that is fully burned on the disc so that it is always a viable physical copy unless it breaks, they cannot just come into your house and take it from you. So why are they doing that when it a digital copy?

Well they simply state that you never actually owned it.

You were just temporarily accessing it. Like renting it for an unspecified amount of time because they’re not going to tell you when you’ll no longer have access to it.

This is what this means. No physical media whatsoever.

Everything is in their control. They can change it. They can remove it. They can even deny access to it in the first place. You no longer have the authority to do that.

When something is fully owned by you, then it is yours to do whatever you will with it. Whether that’s reselling it or giving it away or sharing it out. Passing it off to retailers, to friends, to family, to small independents…

Whatever it may be. You have that right because you fully own that product. Fully own that piece of media or technology. Now that is no longer possible for you to do because there is no physical media to fully own going forward. There is only digital media that’s either given permission to temporarily have access via a license for it through a retailer or to rent directly from the source.

There is no actual product anymore with which to own because renting is not owning and regardless what you think, you will only be renting what you buy digitally if that source can deny you or revoke your access from it.

This is how big this shit is. It’s a fucking HUGE DEAL what is happening with this and we can’t just accept it.

We can’t just say “Ah, oh well. Let them have control.”

Because that’s a slippery slope and where does the line fucking draw? At what point is there a line in the sand?

We have to make it. They won’t. Everything benefits them so why would they make that line? Be realistic.

It’s up to us to protest and pushback because this is so much bigger than what we can possibly realize at the moment and it’s going to be a huge fucking deal for us as consumers that we don’t actually own what we buy because that should never be the case with any kind of media or technology. That should always belong to us unless we have wilfully given up access to it and that is what we’re actually doing if we continue to accept this.

We are saying to Big Tech companies by purchasing digital-only media or technology from this point forwards that we don’t own what we buy and therefore cannot control anything that happens to it. They do.

Make an informed decision to act against this because if we don’t do that as a collective - we are all fucked because this won’t end at TV art/entertainment media.

It should be fucking illegal to deny or revoke access to a consumer’s legally purchased products whether they be digital or physical unless stated otherwise and the consumer is fully aware that they only have temporary access to it and they have accepted that as the case.

The fact it’s not proves that this will only get WORSE.

I am still trying to fully process what this actually means and I feel I haven’t even begun to fully understand the impact and ramifications this will have for us in future.

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