Physical media, a source of entertainment that’s making its way back into the mainstream as of recent. Sure, there’s always been people who collect Cd’s, vinyl’s, DVDs, or whatever it may be. But with boycotting and rising prices of subscription services people seem to be leaning more towards the home music and movie scene.
But why spend money on a piece of plastic that you can only watch or listen to in your home rather than on the go? Speaking to former record store employee Leigh Marie enlightened me on the topic. Stating that she “finds comfort” in going back to these older pieces of media she grew up with rather than playing it from her phone. She then goes onto say that she’s boycotted Spotify for various reasons, one of the main reasons being Neil Young boycotting it a couple years back removing his songs off of Spotify for a bit.
Another reason people have stated that they’re boycotting Spotify and other streaming services is because of the constant increase in price and new rules they keep adding. People have criticized Netflix in the last couple years for their household rules. Let’s say you’re a student and your mom pays for the family Netflix account, if you move out of home to go off to college or university you won’t be able to access the Netflix because you’re not in the same house as the main account holder.
Spotify and Netflix have increased the price of their subscriptions over the last couple years, and they have no intention on stopping. The standard monthly subscription for Netflix without ads is $18.99, that’s more than minimum wage here in Ontario.
Personal Collection
If there’s one thing people love, it’s a good collection of their favourite merchandise or anything they may enjoy. A huge reason people tend to go back to these forms of media is because you can physically own the copies of your favourite albums or your favourite movie. People online often share their collections of movies, video games, or music for other people to share because they’re proud of it. Some like the decoration aspect of the hobby and some live for the hunt for that one special addition to their collection. Bringing in the fact that with physical media, you actually own the product rather than renting it from a company with a subscription service, the only person responsible for it disappearing one day is you.
When it comes to the hunting angle, Collectors often adore going to thrift stores in order to find what they’re looking for. That feeling of finding the needle in the haystack that you just so happened to come across. As well in London, there are plenty of stores to go collecting at downtown, to name a few there’s ‘Grooves’, ‘Odyssey Records’, Dundas Discs, and City Lights Bookshop.
It seems with everything happening in the world right now people want to lean towards the charm and personality that physical media brings into peoples lives. Not to mention it’s a great way to be introduced into communities and find a new group of like minded people who share the same passion.
