Why I’m Collecting Physical Media Again (And Why You Should Too)

For a while, I thought I was free. Like most people, I embraced the shift to digital, swapping DVDs for Netflix, CDs for Spotify, and photo albums for endless scrolling through phone galleries. It was convenient, instant, and seemingly infinite. Why take up space with shelves of discs or boxes of vinyl when everything was just a click away? But the more I relied on digital platforms, the more I realised I didn’t actually own anything anymore.

Streaming services have killed true ownership. What we have now isn’t a personal collection, but a temporary licence to access entertainment, one that can be revoked, edited, or monetised at any time. Algorithms dictate what’s available, licensing deals mean films disappear overnight, and if you lose internet access, you lose everything. So, I’ve started collecting again. Blu-rays, records, CDs, even printed photos. And I think you should too.

The Illusion of Access

One of the biggest lies sold to us by tech corporations is that we have access to everything. In reality, we have access to whatever they decide to give us at any given time. Streaming services rotate content based on licensing agreements, meaning your favourite film, album, or TV show could vanish overnight. Entire libraries disappear when companies collapse, think of the mass removal of films and shows from HBO Max as a tax write-off, or how countless digital-only albums have been lost when music platforms shut down.

When you rely solely on digital, you are at the mercy of corporations who care only about profit, not cultural preservation. They can edit content retroactively, remove controversial works, or throttle access through price hikes and tiered subscriptions. What was once yours is now just another leased service, dependent on a monthly payment and the whims of a boardroom. In 2023, users of Amazon Kindle discovered that books they had “purchased” were suddenly unavailable due to licensing changes, exposing the fragility of digital ownership.

Physical Media as Cultural Preservation

The shift away from physical media has led to significant losses in cultural preservation. Thousands of films, albums, and books have disappeared because they were never given a proper physical release. Streaming platforms prioritise what is profitable now, not what is historically or artistically significant. The result is that entire parts of cultural history risk being erased.

The case of missing media isn’t just theoretical; it’s happening right now. In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery pulled multiple films and series from its HBO Max streaming platform, not just making them unavailable to subscribers but also ensuring they could not be purchased elsewhere. These were not obscure titles, but productions that had been promoted and celebrated only months earlier. When something is removed from streaming and doesn’t have a physical counterpart, it effectively ceases to exist.

For music lovers, the case for collecting records and CDs is just as strong. Streaming services actively suppress independent and niche artists while pushing algorithm-friendly, major-label-approved playlists. Ownership means ensuring that music you love can’t be removed, edited, or buried by corporate interests. Owning physical copies is an act of defiance against this erasure, an insistence that art is worth more than its ability to generate ad revenue.

Supporting Artists and Fairer Pay

Streaming services have also fundamentally changed how artists are compensated, and not for the better. The majority of musicians, filmmakers, and authors receive mere fractions of a penny per stream, while record labels, publishers, and tech giants profit disproportionately. Spotify, for example, pays artists an average of just £0.003 per stream, meaning even moderately successful musicians struggle to make a sustainable income from streaming alone.

Buying a physical album or a Blu-ray directly supports artists and creators in a way that streaming never will. When you purchase an album on vinyl or CD, a significantly larger portion of the money goes to the artist compared to streaming royalties. Similarly, buying a film on Blu-ray or DVD supports filmmakers and distributors without funnelling profits solely to major corporations. Independent artists and smaller production companies rely heavily on physical sales, as streaming platforms favour mass-market content and algorithm-driven recommendations.

The Joy of Tangibility

Beyond the politics of ownership, there’s something deeply satisfying about holding a piece of media in your hands. A record sleeve, a Blu-ray case, a printed photo, these are artefacts, not just data files. They come with liner notes, artwork, special features, and a sense of permanence that digital media can never replicate. The joy of flipping through a well-curated collection, of lending a favourite film to a friend, of discovering an old CD in a charity shop, these are experiences that streaming cannot provide.

Physical media also fosters intentionality. When you own something, you engage with it differently. There is no endless scrolling through an algorithm-curated list of ‘suggestions’, no autoplay pushing you into another round of passive consumption. You make a choice, put on a record, watch a film without interruption, and experience media in a way that demands attention rather than distraction. Studies have shown that people retain information better when reading from physical books compared to screens, suggesting that the materiality of media plays a role in our engagement and understanding.

The Danger of Digital Erasure

The risks of relying solely on digital media aren’t just theoretical. We’ve already seen how corporations can erase content at will. We live in an era where news can be rewritten, books can be digitally altered, and history can be quietly erased. The concept of “revising” content isn’t new, but the ability to do so instantaneously and globally is unprecedented. In 2019, Netflix removed an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj from its Saudi Arabian platform after government pressure, setting a precedent for digital censorship that physical media would have prevented.

The same is true for personal memories. Social media platforms and cloud services encourage us to store everything digitally, but how secure is that really? Facebook has deleted entire accounts without warning, Google Photos and iCloud rely on subscriptions, and a hacked account can mean losing years of personal history in an instant. Having physical photo albums or printed pictures ensures that your memories exist outside of corporate control. The physical archive is one of the last remaining acts of autonomy we have over our personal history.

The decline of physical media is not just an issue of nostalgia or convenience; it is a direct consequence of capitalist consolidation and corporate greed. By eliminating ownership and moving everything to a rental-based model, corporations ensure a steady stream of profit while stripping consumers of control. Subscription services are a form of enclosure, where access to culture is no longer a right but a privilege granted in exchange for continued payment.

When physical media disappears, it becomes easier to rewrite history. Books go out of print, films are edited to fit new corporate standards, music is censored or reissued in altered forms. What we can access is determined not by public need, but by what is deemed profitable. Owning physical media is, therefore, a radical act, an assertion that culture should belong to the people, not to the highest bidder.

Reclaiming What’s Ours

I’m not suggesting we abandon all digital platforms, streaming has its place, particularly for discovery. But it should not replace ownership. By collecting physical media, we are reclaiming control over our cultural and personal histories. We are rejecting the idea that access should be temporary and conditional. We are preserving art for future generations, ensuring that important works do not simply vanish when they stop being financially viable.

So start small. Pick up a record from a local shop, buy a Blu-ray of your favourite film, print out photos instead of letting them disappear into the algorithm. Build something tangible. Because once we give up ownership, we may never get it back.