What do you think of the relentless push to go digital?

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Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Sunshine@piefed.ca⁩ to ⁨ask@piefed.social⁩

Digital movies, games, cash, books, letters.

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lemmygarden@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I like paper and tangible things

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hendrik@palaver.p3x.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I don’t think “digital” is the issue. Main difference is how we’ve transitioned from owning stuff to renting everything as a service. With all its ups and downs. You can’t lend it to your friend, at some point there’s going to be licensing issues and you can’t re-watch or listen something anymore, it’s just gone. Occasionally there will be hiccups. Everything is jam-packed with spying, advertisement/manipulation and restrictions.

Digital on its own is kinda nice?! I like e-readers, mp3-players, the comfort of email compared to hand-writing a letter and then not having the correct amount of postage at home. I replaced the cassette deck in the car with a digital radio a long time ago. And now I don’t need to bring any 12 volume audiobooks anymore. That’s all very nice and convenient in the right way.

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MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Digital can be great when corpos and governments aren’t killing everything that makes it great (such as being able to have a local copy one can duplicate and share freely).

Except maybe books, but even then it’s good to have options.

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threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I love the convenience of it. Digital money, books, and communication channels are way easier to use than their paper equivalents.

However, for media like movies and games (and I guess books, to an extent), I do have some reservations regarding ownership and long-term archival. In many cases, “purchasing” a digital copy turns out to be “purchasing the right access to view/use the content for an indefinite (but not infinite) period of time”. That doesn’t really seem like “ownership” to me. For some media, I’ve opted to purchase a physical copy to support the creator, but then obtain a digital copy from, uh, “elsewhere”, or convert it to a digital copy myself.

There was another case where a show I wanted to watch was released only on streaming services, but later removed and never released on physical media. There is currently no legal way to watch the show. I would have happily paid for a physical copy had it been available, but I had no choice but to obtain a copy from “elsewhere” :)

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