Why Physical Media Keep Coming Back
For years, the entertainment industry assured us physical media were living on borrowed time. Streaming was more convenient, they said. You didn’t need shelves for a digital library. Instant access had made DVDs, CDs, Blu-rays, and even books obsolete.
Their vision of a future without ownership seemed inevitable.
Then the unexpected happened.
Physical media refused to go quietly into the night. Vinyl records continued attracting new buyers. Small bookstores staged an unlikely comeback. And niche film studios are thriving on Blu-ray.
Even Zoomers, a generation raised almost entirely on streaming, have begun collecting movies, records, and physical books in growing numbers.
Many commenters dismiss the physical media trend as nostalgia. But their explanation falls apart under scrutiny. A twenty-year-old buying vinyl records cannot be nostalgic for an era he barely remembers. Nor is a film buff compiling a DVD collection in 2026 trying to relive the 1990s.
Read the full post on Substack.
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