In July 2024, Redbox's parent company collapsed, bringing not only its disc rental kiosk business to an end, but the streaming platform also went dark. Thousands of users lost movies and shows they had purchased, all gone overnight with no recourse. This isn't just about Redbox streaming going dark. Streaming services are pulling titles without warning. Digital storefronts are shutting down, taking purchased libraries with them. Cloud platforms are changing their terms, their prices, and their availability, sometimes overnight. But, guess what? There's something happening quietly in living rooms and libraries across the world. The bookshelf is still standing, the DVD's still have those cool ass menus, and the turntable is still spinning. Redbox was just a warning to media collectors... if you don't own your own media, the platforms own you.
I am not going to lie and say I don't watch on streaming platforms, and don't read books online. I will say, however, I have a deep collection of physical media that regularly is put to use in my home. Very recently, we wanted to watch a few M. Night Shyamalan movies, but guess what? They were not available streaming on the few apps we use! I'm sure that's happened to nearly everyone reading this at some point. Fortunately, I had options... I went to each cabinet and found the two movies: Signs and The Village. These are amazing films that just aren't readily available, which I happened to have DVD copies of for many years. Low and behold, we watched both movies that week without paying Amazon or Fandango to rent or buy them. Even worse, we lost internet access for 2 weeks after a hurricane, but we didn't go a night without watching a scary movie in October because I just visited my trusty movie collection and picked a favorite to watch. 30 Days of Night, Slither, Alien, and Shaun of the Dead were all available, without spending another dime, from my video cabinet.
We live in an age that has convinced us that digital is better because it is easier, and yeah, it's definitely convenient. I still use the digital codes in movies I buy to watch quickly, but I always keep the physical discs because I know that convenience and value are not the same thing. At this store, we believe in physical media, not out of nostalgia, but out of conviction. Here's why.
You Own What You Can Touch
When you buy a digital movie, an e-book, or a streaming subscription, read the fine print. In most cases, you are not purchasing a product. You are purchasing a license. A license that can be revoked, altered, or simply discontinued when the company decides it's no longer profitable to maintain. I have friends who violated some random terms of service that lost their entire catalog online, and some who have been barred from using streaming platforms for accessing at different addresses and by VPN. That's not freedom of access.
When you hold a book in your hands, that book is yours. No subscription required. No internet connection needed. No company can reach into your home and take it back. The same goes with your favorite CD or record, or a Blu-ray copy of Lost Highway. Physical media restores the true ownership that the digital revolution quietly took away.
Permanence in a Disposable Age
Digital libraries have a troubling habit of changing. I have personally lost access to several digital copies, and was happy that I kept the physical discs to enjoy the movie. As with Redbox, entire platforms with thousands of purchased titles have gone offline, leaving customers with nothing except maybe an apology. Beloved films get quietly removed from streaming services like Netflix and Peacock daily, and you don't even know it until you finally get the time to watch the movie. Out-of-print books vanish from digital storefronts as well. This doesn't even begin to touch what happens to content that doesn't disappear, because the studio and platform can make any change they want. I recently noticed that Disney was changing the 20th Century Fox intros on their streaming platforms to say 20th Century Studios, and there are always changes made in "remastered" versions of films.
Physical media doesn't work that way. A book printed fifty years ago is just as readable today as it was the day it was published. A film pressed onto disc doesn't require a server to keep running, or need a subscription to locate. What you buy is yours, and you're the only one who can decide to change that.
There was a recent event involving St. Louis public television station Nine PBS, whose 70 year programming history was stored on the cloud with Open Source Storage (OSS). The problem arose when OSS went bankrupt and liquidated their assets, leaving the Nine PBS history in the hands of a Iron Mountain data center who was planning to delete all the OSS storage accounts. Imagine this happening with AWS, which hosts so much content for streaming platforms, and one goes bankrupt? What will AWS do with your library of movies that you had bought on that service, and have no other way to access?
When the Grid Goes Dark, What Will Our Children Know about Our History?
This is the question that drives everything I do here. Think about it seriously for a moment. Our history, our culture, our stories, an enormous and growing portion of them exist only in digital form, dependent on functioning infrastructure, active servers, and reliable power. It is a fragile foundation for civilization's memory, especially if there is no physical record.
When the grid goes dark, whether through natural disaster, geopolitical crisis, technological failure, or simply the slow entropy of neglected systems, how will our children know our history? How will they understand who we were, what we valued, what we learned, and what we created?
The answer, as it has always been, is the physical record. The printed page. The pressed disc. The tangible artifact you can hand from one generation to the next without needing a password.
Every great civilization that we know anything about left behind physical objects. The ones whose records existed only in perishable or inaccessible forms are the ones history forgot. We should not be so arrogant as to assume our digital infrastructure is any more permanent than a clay tablet. A clay tablet, it turns out, has survived thousands of years.
The Experience Is Simply Better
Beyond preservation, there is something to be said for the experience itself. Have you noticed how every streaming service has a new original exclusive series and movie every week? Have you noticed how so many of them just flat out suck? It's because there is no soul in the filming anymore. Background actors, sometimes called cameo appearances, just don't happen anymore, and the casting is so minimal that it feels hollow. The shows feel so stretched out, and most could have made a great 2 hour movie instead of an 8 hour series. This is because the streaming services need you to stay engaged so they can increase revenues. Sure, there are always going to be more original gems like Stranger Things and Dead Boy Detectives, but on the other hand I'll raise, or lower you, The I-Land.
A film on disc often contains what streaming cannot offer: director's commentaries, behind-the-scenes documentaries, actor spotlights, deleted scenes, and artwork. These are not extras, but instead, they are context. They are the difference between consuming a film and understanding it. I hate to mention it again, but DVD's had the coolest damn menus! It gets even better though. You can actually jump scenes, share it with a friend, and listen to the credits track as many times as you want without buffering.
A book has weight. It has texture. You can fold a page, scrawl a note in the margin, or leave it on a nightstand and return to it without unlocking anything or waiting for a tablet to charge. Reading a physical book is an act that engages more than just your eyes, It is tactile, personal, and wholly yours.
With music, what isn't there to love about the crisp sound of a new CD? Recently, I pulled out my dual CD set from 1996 of Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and did a comparison to the Amazon Music "remastered" album on a few songs. The 30 year old CD was, hands down, the best quality by far. So many people have never experienced this because they just don't want to take the time to load a CD, or even buy a CD player. On the other hand, nothing beats the raw sound from a clean vinyl album through a set of Bose speakers. The feeling I get listening the Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl gives me goosebumps up my neck.
Physical media invites you to slow down. To be intentional. To curate a collection that reflects who you are rather than what an algorithm thinks you should watch next.
A Collection Is a Legacy
The books on your shelves tell a story about you. Your movie collection will share your personality. Your music collection will give insight into how you survived. They will all outlive you. They can be passed to your children, your grandchildren, a friend who needs exactly the right story at exactly the right moment. A digital library, tied to an account that will eventually be closed, cannot do any of that.
When you build a physical collection, you are building something that lasts. Your life and history, told by your media collection to any who takes the time to understand it. You are participating in the long, human tradition of preserving what matters by saying, this is worth keeping.
I'm Here Because I Believe It
This store exists because I believe physical media matters. Not as a relic. Not as a novelty. But as a genuine, lasting, meaningful way to own culture, protect history, and pass something real to the people who come after us.
Browse my collections here. Find something worth holding onto.
Because in a world that is always asking you to rent, subscribe, and stream. Owning something still means something.
I've been fortunate enough to make some great friends selling on marketplaces such as Bonanza in the past. View my feedback ratings to see how I take care of my customers and friends with their orders below.
Read more of my seller reviews.
"By far the best DVD/Blu Ray vendor I have purchased from on online. They responded to any requests I had quickly, shipped everything quickly and accurately, were very reasonably priced, and all my movies played perfectly! Definitely will shop from them again, and would unhesitatingly recommend them."
Gilbert, San Francisco
