In the back corners of comic cons and vintage shops, you will likely find small stashes where people are selling their “retro” wares. There are piles of comic books, shelves stocked with DVDs and VHS tapes, stacks of CDs, bins of vinyl, and buckets of old Nintendo cartridges. Unopened packs of pokemon cards nuzzled up beside rows and rows of Xbox 360 and PS2 games, all with their original seals broken. At first glance, the unorganized mess brings back memories of digging through endless boxes and bins in a futile attempt to organize the endless games, movies, albums, and so on. However, these frustrating memories soon melt away into a strange ache for something we’ve lost.
The digital media wars were waged throughout the course of the twentieth century. As technology changed and evolved, the way people consumed it did, too. As soon as cassette tapes came out, generations of people began donating their vinyl record collections to the nearest Salvation Army. Just a few years later, those cassettes were set aside in favor of the hot new ticket in town, CDs. It was considered to be part of capitalism’s natural evolution. Every new iteration was marketed as better than the previous, creating constant arguments about which form was genuinely the “best.”
The digital media wars all but ended after the introduction of the iPhone. It condensed movies, music, games, and everything else under the sun into a single object that fit conveniently into your pocket. It was mobile, personalized, and of the highest quality. In one fell swoop, it killed off some of society’s staples, like pay phones and video stores.
The introduction of the iPhone was not an inherently bad thing. It’s trite to argue that mobile phones are without value. Yet the introduction of the iPhone was bad for a culture of people who’d found value, joy, and community in physical media.
When we own things, we value them in a different way. A study found that employee-owned businesses in the UK had 12 percent higher productivity rates than corporate owned businesses, leading to better long term profitability. When these businesses employees had a stake in their profitability, they were much more invested in the company’s success. The same principle is true of people who own their homes as opposed to those who rent. Homeowners are far more willing to invest in upkeep and maintenance because they have a financial stake in the property’s well-being.
Similarly, when we own digital media, we assign it a much higher value. Whether it’s records, movies, or video games, buyers had to choose which to buy carefully. They bore the financial burden if the media they bought sucked. Alternatively, they could also rejoice in discovering something they loved. This process helped create social bonds, where people were more likely to talk to their friends and acquaintances about the things they’d watched or the music they’d heard. It built a social network where peoples’ conversations were part of a shared culture.
Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify also diminished the value of media, and as a result, eroded our shared culture. Having constant access to nearly every show, movie, and song allows for these things to become disposable. We start movies and shows, only to stop halfway through and never finish them. We turn on music and listen to one song then skip the rest of the album. We download games and never touch them because there are hundreds and thousands of free apps available.
Having everything accessible is not a great success for artistry in media. Having everything accessible diminishes the meaning of what we have. We can’t possibly appreciate everything, so we become indifferent to it.
This is a political problem as much as it is a cultural one. When we dismiss the value of ownership, our individual liberties shrink. If you don’t own a single album or DVD, the companies distributing that media can remove them from digital platforms at any time for any reason. They can either modify or totally scrub them from the internet. The same thing can happen to books. Or to photos. Or to contact lists. Or to banking information. The list goes on and on.
As governments and big corporations push us into exclusively digital spaces, we have to be cautious. We should not allow our art, our loves, and our lives to be digitized. We’re created beings in a physical world. If everything you own is online, isn’t it time to ask why?
