#physical content

-you don’t actually own any of the digital content you spend money on

-most licensing agreements allow you to rent it for the duration of your lifetime

-almost all digital platforms reserve the right to delete or remove it in the event that there is a copyright dispute or it’s otherwise no longer available

-this makes digital content virtually worthless as an asset, because it cannot be sold on, shared with friends, lent to others, or passed down as inheritance

-Amazon is pretty explicit (in the small-print at least) about their willingness to freeze anyone’s account, at any time, for any reason, blocking access to any of a user’s digital content (and this has happened through technical ‘errors’ to more than one kindle customer, meaning they lost access to all their books)

-security processes like two-factor authentication, as well as the need for a consistent wifi signal on many platforms can make digital content needlessly difficult to access and thus less user-friendly for those on low-incomes and/or who don’t have smartphones

-deliberate attempts by manufacturers to remove CD-drives from laptops, car radios, and other devicces were driven by a desire to see all music digitised to maximise profits

-the drop in revenue from DVD sales is having a lasting and legitimate impact on the sector of the film industry in which most new and original creative talent is able to flourish so when y’all complain that the only things in the cinema are marvel movies, military propaganda, and sequels no-one asked for, this is why. Films with a $1-50 million budget are heavily reliant on DVD sales to make a profit, especially genre movies whose appeal to a mass-market audience will be limited, so the collapse in DVD sales is effectively killing all but giant blockbusters and small indie films.

-the unexpectedly high carbon-footprint of owning a digital copy pretty much wipes out the benefit of not having to make more stuff, because of a) the massive amount of charge a portable device needs to consume it and b) the emmissions generated by huge digital platforms in the first place. They have lower overheads than traditional manufacturing and publishing, so can afford to be more polluting all while paying less tax.