It seems to me like the world has had 3 phases:
- Phase 1: People own media on records, tapes, etc. because that's the only way to listen to what you want whenever you want. The only alternative is radio, where you listen to what the DJ thinks you should hear. If you buy something once, you can listen to it whenever you want forever. (Or at least as long as the medium holds up)
- Phase 2: It was relatively easy to get the media you wanted on demand, but it wasn't always legal, because the copyright cartels were used to a certain way of doing business and didn't like disruption. During this phase people still bought read-only media in stores. But, they also sometimes bought blank media and filled it up from their computers at home.
- Phase 3: Everything is now online, and you no longer own media. In this phase you can listen to / watch whatever you want, but you don't get to own anything, and you have to pay monthly if you don't want your media viewing / listening to be interrupted by ads. In this phase, media you love can just disappear if someone loses the license to stream it, or the copyright owner decides to pull it or modify it. In this version someone like George Lucas can decide that the version of Star Wars you grew up on should change, and you now have to accept his new version.
Unfortunately, long-term storage hasn't kept pace with short-term storage and bandwidth. You can make someone a "mix tape" that's a USB stick, but if someone puts it on a shelf it might not be readable in 5 years. You could save the original version of Star Wars to a NAS. But, if your friend wants to borrow it, it's not as easy as grabbing a case off the bookshelf and handing it over.
I keep hoping that one of these "crystal storage" mechanisms takes off. Then we can much more easily be data hoarders, keeping everything, and not relying on a continued subscription to a streaming service for our favourite media.
