Gone are the times when you could walk through a DVD rental store and browse through their seemingly endless catalog; when films had personalized menu screens that would always enhance the experience, with bloopers, hidden content, mini-games and more. And forget being able to rewatch your favorite film, because even if you pay for most streaming services and have a VPN, it could always disappear if it is not popular enough.

The rise of streaming services has undoubtedly made it easier and more comfortable to access media like film and music, and owning physical copies of such content seems, to many people, pointless now. However, keeping DVDs, Blu-rays, vinyls and CDs is more than just collecting or holding onto the past, it is a form of protecting art and its accessibility. 

Streaming services can never provide a consistent catalog; licensing agreements, regional restrictions and the ever-changing landscape of rights acquisition mean that movies or shows may disappear from these platforms without a warning. Everyone who pays for such services has experienced wanting to rewatch a film only to find that it’s no longer available to stream anywhere. In the scenario that a film is not available on any streaming service, it is like it doesn’t exist, and this is unfortunately the case for many movies.

Furthermore, there is now a pressing issue of ownership within streaming services. Platforms, such as Amazon Prime, give its users the option to buy certain films. That, however, is not exactly what it seems. 

By purchasing a movie or song on a streaming service, the user is not actually buying it, rather than simply paying for access. The difference is that the platform in which you made the purchase can always remove that content from your library. In contrast, buying physical copies of your media means that no one can take it away from you, it is immune to corporate decision-making and one can watch it as many times as they want without fear of it disappearing. 

Moreover, if physical media were as accessible to buy nowadays as it used to be, people would have more choice over their media consumption. We see what’s available to us in streaming services, which severely limits our options and excludes many films from our awareness. Think of how many movies you could buy, or find at rental stores twenty years ago. With streaming services, the options are much more limited, given that less popular films are either never available or quickly removed. 

Not only did the demise of DVD rental stores make it more difficult to access older or niche films, but those brick-and-mortar stores also gave people a sense of community. Much is said about the lack of  “third places,” and such stores were an example of that, they motivated you to leave the house and you could always find people there with similar interests. It used to be so fun to pick which movie to rent or buy, and not only that, but physical media helped us engage more with what we were consuming: from the art on the cover to browsing the menu section on a DVD.

Thus, the biggest issue with the decline in popularity of physical media is the disappearance of many films and music. Physical media was a fun and secure way to preserve content that didn’t force people to resort to illegal ways of consuming media, such as piracy. As streaming services continue to dominate the market, the risk of losing access to beloved classics and niche titles grows, and in this digital age, physical media ensures the preservation and control over our entertainment.

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Hi! I’m Annie Gleydura, A Magazine’s editor-in-chief. My staff and I are committed to bringing you the most important and entertaining news from the realms of fashion, beauty and culture. We are full-time students and hard-working journalists. While we get support from the student media fee and earned revenue such as advertising, both of those continue to decline. Your generous gift of any amount will help enhance our student experience as we grow into working professionals. Please go here to donate to A Magazine.