Physical Media Won’t Die Out

People say digital media is taking over physical media, but the reality is more nuanced than that.

How We Got Here

Most people don’t know, but physical media as a whole evolved over time. It started out as magazines, newspapers and journals. Mostly just written material until the television came about and the channels that were available. If you wanted to watch a show and you missed an episode, then you probably missed it forever unless you got lucky and found the episode again in a rerun. Then came the VCR, aka Video Cassette Recorder, which allowed people to record programs from their TV and put them on a VHS tape, aka Video Home System, so physical media became collectible for the first time.

As time went on, new technology came out as DVDs, aka Digital Versatile Discs, and Blu-Ray came and dominated the physical media landscape. People no longer cared about VHS tapes and how bulky they were. As for physical media, they took up a lot of space compared to their new competition. They are the current best ways to get certain shows and movies as people have whole shelves full of DVDs and Blu-Rays. That climate is waning as the introduction of streaming services give people a digital option to enjoy just as much as the competition, but infinitely more than thought possible.

Digital media extends to more than just shows and movies on streaming services. Music sellers and video games have had digital releases and they have also been transitioning away from physical media releases as other industries realize the cost of using physical products to manufacture their media when being digital would save them time and money to make physical versions.

In terms of statistics, Gitnux.org gathered a ton of statistics on sales of digital media in the last decade and how impactful the change to media production is for money saving and time saving to maximize production.

Here are a few that stuck out for me:

“83% of video game sales occur digitally, allowing companies to keep all the revenue from the game and bypassing the need to manufacture, package, ship, and wholesale”

— Gitnux.org

“CD album sales in the US have dropped 95% since 2000 and are at their lowest level since 1986”

— Gitnux.org

“The subscription economy has grown more than 435% in the last 9 years, almost 6x growth in less than a decade”

— Gitnux.org

This issue is fueled by the mindset that people can save time and money if they transfer over to digital media releases.

Accessibility of Media

If you think those statistics on digital media consumption are ridiculous, especially considering how recent these apply, think about how, for many, the accessibility of media is also just as important as the release of media itself. For TV channels, once there was an opening on the timeslots of channels, reruns of older shows and episodes became common. People don’t need to rely on streaming services as much if they want something to watch. Now, if they want something specific, they’d have to check the services library to see if any of them have what they want, which in some cases, they don’t.

As for other physical media like DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs, video games, newspapers and magazines, the one thing they all have in common is they need to be sold at a retailer to be purchased by the appropriate consumer. Now, not everyone has the time to go to a store and see if the video game, DVD, or CD they want is there because if it isn’t, they effectively wasted their time when they could easily find it online. Not just digital media sellers, but digital retail like Amazon and eBay are big for that. If you are looking for something, there is a very high chance it can be found on Amazon or eBay. Unfortunately, this is the current climate of retailers as less and less stock goes to actual stores, while Amazon rakes in all the profits from their sales and Ebay is the place to be for third party sellers.

One more thing about accessibility to media is if it can be found globally or if it’s region locked to a certain part of the world. That limits a huge majority of the population from experiencing a piece of media physically all because it does not exist in their region. So, to solve this problem, people use eBay and get their hands on DVDs and media from other countries and hope it works on the devices they have and can understand it. On top of that, because the media came from another country, you wouldn’t know how good or bad the quality was and you don’t have an easy way to return it. Now, this is where digital media shines, as you can watch said show online without worrying about the import price, the worries of quality or defects in a physical version.

Advantages of Physical Media

While people say that streaming services are the better option for media consumption compared to DVDs and Blu-Rays, there are advantages to physical media. One is the one time payment compared to monthly subscriptions. Services make their money with either ads or the monthly plans, and not everyone can afford the monthly fees as those add up over time. They get you with the $9.99 a month plan, but after a year you realize that the amount of money you put into the service annually was roughly $119.99. Sure, they offer a free trial usually, but that doesn’t offset the money they’ll gain. On the other hand, with physical media, as long as you have a DVD or Blu-Ray player, you only need to make one purchase to have a show or movie and you’re guaranteed to have that media for as long as you want, no fees attached.

Another amazing factor to physical media is the longevity they hold. With physical media, older shows and movies are less likely to be lost to time with the existence of DVDs and Blu-Rays. With streaming services, the customer is at the whim of the provider for how long a show or movie is on their platform and the customer can’t pay to keep those specifically, unless they buy them on Amazon Prime or YouTube. Otherwise, they are prone to vanish eventually. Physical media does not need to be at the whims of service providers or TV channels. Once it releases as a DVD or Blu-Ray, the only ones who control where it goes are retailers and third party sellers.

Another advantage to physical media is the collectability of said media and having something physical to pass down in your family to your children and so on. Sure, this isn’t for everyone, especially those with a lack of storage space, but it matters to some that having a collection of media means something. What leaves a better impression, a collection of DVDs on a shelf, or a library folder on a computer or a service provider of the same thing? The physical collection leaves a bigger impact and their value goes up over time. Once you buy a digital show, that’s it. It won’t go up or down in price because you can’t resell it, but in the case of a physical collection, you can value it depending on condition, quantity and quality to get a huge return for it later in life. One was a short time investment, while the other was for prosperity and a huge value return upon reselling.

Future of Physical Media

After all this, I bet you are wondering what is the future of physical media. Well, from where I am sitting, it doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon as people have started to notice that paying for a streaming service may not be the best idea when they aren’t getting all that much out of it.

Not everyone is as optimistic about this issue, as FOX Business, a news outlet, did an article on how physical media ending would only give tech giants more control over media in the digital landscape. They said in a statement that,

“If I own physical copies of books and keep them in a personal library in my home, it is highly unlikely that someone is going to decide to dispossess me of half of them for murky reasons. If that entire library consists of e-books rather than physical books, it is much more likely that I could lose access to half of my collection”

— FOX Business

It’s scary to think about how media is being shaped and how older classical works can now be edited and censored to fit the modern time mostly out of a necessity to not anger someone who throws a tantrum at every little thing in the media. In fact, it’s so scary that some retailers have announced they will stop selling DVDs soon. They claim it’s because of the landscape of technology and we need to adapt to keep up, yet we should not ditch physical media and everything it does right.

There is still hope, as another article mentions how other types of physical media are making a comeback, by mentioning how newspapers are seen as more enjoyable to read than online articles. Vinyl records are making a comeback and e-book reading time has gone down in favor of physical books. This may be a small niche in a market swarming in digital media expansion, but it is a start and a surprise some did not see coming.

As for some who don’t believe me, I say DVDs and Blu-Rays are here to stay. Whether they get sold in stores or online, there are plenty of people who still care about that kind of media distribution, like myself, and don’t want our favorite pieces of media from years past falling victim to the censor hammer just because a few people don’t like what this show did or that movie did. Physical media is not dying and is kept going by the people that care about their media and how it is presented to the world.

Take a step back and analyze the media you consume and make the decision for yourself whether or not it is worth consuming the way you currently do. Be apart of the cause that won’t allow this media format to die.