Be Grateful to Own Nothing

Permalink

Follow me via:

---

Text-to-speech support required

Who even BUYS physical media anymore? Asked the guy whose experience with gaming is exclusively on his phone and a PlayStation 5, whose only interaction with music as a medium is via Spotify and Walmart radio. Who buys physical media, anyway? A question I’ve been seeing a lot lately, ever since Sony announced that they’re killing the medium and experience of owning things, now, and forever.

But we’ve been through this song and dance before. Many times, actually.

Spotify has been slowly killing the CD market for around fifteen or so years, and I couldn’t tell you that I know a single person who even still buys CDs. That’s not to say that you can’t buy a CD from your favorite band on Bandcamp, but they might be on their way out, too.

And the same goes for movies and shows.

There was a time when Netflix’s streaming option was there as backup, for when you couldn’t get the movie you wanted to rent sent to you via DVD.

So, this has been a thing that’s been happening since at least 2006 or so, and it’s only gotten worse. But, maybe better? I mean, on the positive side, this is less waste people are tossing in a landfill, but on the negative, putting control of everything you “own” into the hands of corporations means that they can take it away from you, whenever, for whatever reason, or no reason at all, without warning.

And now we come to this question, “What do you own, really?”

Nothing.

And you’ll enjoy it, too.

But let’s circle back a moment. “Who even buys physical media, anyway?”

I do.

I buy movies on Blu-ray that come with digital codes so that I can have a physical copy as a novelty and a backup, and a digital copy in my Apple TV library.

And I also buy DRM free music from places like Bandcamp, so that I can transfer that music to my backup HDD and my iPod, for safe keeping. Because you can own digital stuff, too! And that’s not something people whose only experience with computing is via a gaming console would readily know in this day and age.

My point throughout all of this, though, is that there are avenues through which you can own things, whether physical or digital, and the most important thing in 2026, is doing your best not to be the Marginal User.

Try to think about the things you do, the way you consume, and how you interact with media. Try your best not to take the easy route, every single time.

Because billionaires like Daniel Ek, and corporations like Sony are counting on you to take the path of least resistance, and then, forty years from now, you won’t own anything. You will be empty, and you might even enjoy it.

I take this same mindset with me on social media. You’ve already seen what happens when you place your digital life and your data into the hands of Elon Musk, and even the Bluesky moderation team. You could lose everything in a moment’s notice and/or without notice, and that’s why you should own your data and host your own shit.

But, I get it. A lot of people want the easy thing.

It’s just that, always choosing what’s easy is how we all put ourselves into this predicament in the first place.