Physical Media Comeback

It’s 2026 and it looks like physical media is on the rise (again). People are re-buying their media collections which we all wantonly cast aside in our rush to digital platforms. Barren shelves in our homes are slowly filling up again. So what’s going wrong, or maybe - what’s now going right?

Digital Dystopia

It turns out that moving everything to big tech owned walled gardens is pretty soulless. This journey most of us undertook will obviously vary for each of us, so I can only speak for my personal experience. However, I suspect many of the below points will be similar for a lot of us. So let’s try and break this down…

Inflation Rising costs across the board (not just Netflix and co) have bitten all of us. Many have come to realise (myself included) they were paying for multiple streaming services, and not always getting enough back in return. Is it really worth subscribing to a service for the occasional show you watch on a whim?

Content Quality As streaming services went to war with each other, content feels like it’s become a numbers game. Who can have the most ‘hit’ shows to pull in the largest customer base? This amounted to throwing everything at a wall and seeing what stuck. Shows started to lack originality and in many cases… were bland. I personally felt this all the way back when Star Trek: Picard - Season 1 released. I know later seasons were better received but this incarnation of the franchise just felt depressing. Gone was the optimism and adventure showing humanity at it’s best, exploring the stars. Instead it was replaced with a dark, depressing, cynical universe filled with bitter admirals and… poverty? Others may disagree but for me, this wasn’t the franchise I grew up with (showing my age).

Perhaps I’m being a little unfair to season 1 of Picard, and power to you if you liked it but other shows I checked out came and went to the point where I fail to recall their names. The only standouts that stuck with me were South Korean shows like Squid Game.

Removal of content If you feel inclined to watch an older show you enjoyed first time around - it may not be there now. To be fair, there’s only so much content the streaming services can host in a local CDN - but this is of little comfort to the consumer. Like a particular artist? Their licensing may have changed so your platform no longer has their back catalogue to hand.

Algorithms Why spend hours fretting over what to watch or listen to next when the streaming service’s built in algorithm can decide based on your past viewings. Admittedly this can be useful if the algorithm has correctly identified what you like and happens to match it with what you fancy at that particular time. The problem lies with wanting to watch or listen to something different. Organic discovery by chance is far less likely - and with the amount of sheer content being too daunting to chose from, what now?

Disconnected

In addition to the above, something else also started to creep its way into our collective malaise. Once everything has become digital and intangible - what connection do we have to the media that helps entertain and in some ways, shape us? Being able to hold and own something we enjoyed helps us create a connection to it. Filling a shelf with media is in some ways like a display case of who we are. No more is this truer than with music.

For me, the compact disc was the format I grew up with which allowed me to better resonate with my music. I had a CD rack which neatly displayed my favourite albums. Often meticulously ordered by genre alphabetically. If I fancied a blast of Metallica, Korn or Linkin Park - I could reach for the album I wanted to play and perform the sacred ritual of placing the disc in the CD player tray. No playlists, no algorithms, just the full album experience as the artist intended.

Over the coming years this experience faded as legal (and not so legal) platforms emerged. Napster turned the industry on its head. Apple’s iTunes platform made ripping discs to your PC or Mac simple, along with digital purchases too. Eventually Spotify emerged with its access over ownership model. Why own an album when you could pay a monthly fee to rent access to (almost) everything?

The problem with having everything is that you have nothing too. Having direct access to the entire breadth of the planet’s musical history can lead to serious analysis paralysis. For me at least, I’d just let the algorithm decide my fate and passively have music playing in the background, typically while doing something else. I was just hearing the music and no longer listening to it. The journey was complete - total disconnection from the musical experience for the listener, not to mention how woeful this is for the artists all round.

Reconnecting

I’m not sure when it started for me personally, but at some point I started reminiscing of the days where physical media was the only option. As an ageing millennial it’s likely an attempt to reconnect with my now distant past. Better than buying a motorbike I guess… As with most, I decided to indulge my burgeoning mid-life crisis. I picked up a 90’s era Sony hi-fi stack from eBay and so the hunt began…

The second-hand shops I typically passed by became a regular weekly outing. Each trip was a chance to net a classic album I either once owned or wanted to. Eventually record shops became a new haunt as these mostly sold CDs too. Finally, I began picking up old Blu-rays and even DVDs too of the shows and movies I grew up with and loved. An unexpected side-effect of my new hobby was visiting new places. I’d stop by towns I was passing to see what swag I could come across by chance. Unintentionally I’d reconnected with my music, media and in some ways, my distant youth.

It’s fair to say I wasn’t the only middle-aged, balding millennial on this journey of rediscovery and re-connection too. I’d come across many others in my generational bracket wistfully seeking out what hidden treasures await. The thing that really surprised me though was the number of younger people also doing the same. Record shops and second-hand stores were also filled up with teenagers, 20 somethings and everyone else also picking up rare finds. I even overheard two looking through the CDs and vinyl saying, “we were born at the wrong time”. It was heartening that younger generations were also seeking a different connection to their favourite media, aside from streaming option.

The Future of Media

Nothing lasts forever, so it was inevitable that streaming platforms wouldn’t be the only game in town. The only surprise is how quickly physical media has made a comeback. It’s clear that a type of dissonance has emerged between customers and streaming, so does that mean streaming is going away? Not likely, but the number of these services may change, as well as how everyone interacts with them. Perhaps a balance will be struck where streaming services will be useful for more casual viewing and listening, possibly even discovery. However, physical media may be the go to choice for ownership of our favourite media. Some may continue their full exodus from streaming platforms but I suspect many of us will settle into a middle ground between access and ownership of the media that resonates with us.