Own Nothing, Be Happy
It’s starting. The purge of
physical media is ascending a few more steps. Recently Best Buy came out saying
it will stop selling DVDs and Blu Rays in 2024 then there was a rumor that
Walmart might stop selling physical video games in 2024 (apparently the rumor is Xbox games). That’s wild to me.
Best Buy stopping movies is like “what is your store going to be filled with
then?” People can only go and buy so many appliances and TVs. Kind of sounds
like they and their store sizes will shrink significantly. Walmart not selling
video games is very weird. Best Buy points to streaming as being the reason for
the move. People aren’t interested in owning movies anymore. I imagine most
people now only watch what’s out or newly released to streaming and then forget
about it, move on to the next thing. I like rewatching stuff and sometimes
something you want to watch isn’t available anywhere to stream. Sometimes you
have to wait and keep checking to see if it’s available anywhere and sometimes
the streaming services rotate a series like Hunger Games. It was on Amazon
Prime, then Netflix, then Hulu. I can imagine it’s the same reason for Walmart
but I think more people want to have their games but there are a lot of people
who only use their Xbox as a
It started with car manufactures getting rid of CD players. I loved my giant CD case that I would thumb through in the car, I loved making burn discs, it wasn’t a big deal, I loved my MP3 player to death but getting rid of CD players was a huge blow to most people. I doubt most people would use a MP3 player when they had a CD player but getting rid of the CD player pushed people into either using the radio, which sucks, or doing a streaming service, which also sucks (even 20ish years ago I hated ads). I want to listen to MY music without interruption. I like buying CDs. I wrote a whole thing about my MP3 woes in another post but I did buy a new MP3 player recently. I bought it as a birthday present to myself because it was something I have wanted since my Zune died and Sony put out a “slightly less expensive” Walkman. It’s fine, it does what it should but it could be so much cleaner. Like why does it have Chrome, a calendar, a calculator, Maps, all these apps that are on everyone’s phones? Just make it an MP3 player! Another thing that is annoying, and I could just be doing something wrong, highly possible, is when I add new songs to my playlist on my PC, instead of the MP3 player just syncing up with it and adding the few new songs it’s like I have to drag the whole playlist to the player and it go through all of them like got that one, got that one, got that one, oh this one’s new, import~
YouTube is pushing their ad-free service hard lately. Bypassing adblockers and locking people out of watching videos unless you subscribe or turn it off. You have people defending this by saying “just pay the $15, it’s not much, blah blah blah” and it’s like yeah okay, I’ll just put that right next to my Game Pass, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Netflix, Disney+, Crunchyroll, Onlyfans, Bark Box, Hello Fresh, ect. In my opinion, one that Reddit didn’t like so much, YouTube should stop paying “content creators” and have less ads because of it. You have people who have a high sub count, have multiple channels and do absolutely nothing. “Content” now-a-days is just people talking, either podcasts, reaction videos or just streaming a game. Some even do reaction videos to a reaction of one of their old reaction videos. Why is this being monetized? Why should this be encouraged? In the days before YouTube you had sites like Homestar Runner, Red VS Blue and Pure Pwnage who would sell merchandise to pay the bills. If YouTubers are looking to monetize their channels then they could sell shirts, have a Patreon and/or do a sponsor video. Some do all these, some do one, but I feel like that’s where their money should come from. I’d be more willing to pay five people I regularly watch $3 then I am to give YouTube $15. Again, most content now is just people sitting around and talking, the stuff I liked was stuff that actually took some planning, talent and actual fucking work. Pure Pwnage was a SHOW. H3H3 and iDubbbz had SKITS. Even things like early JonTron and Game Grumps that were basically “let’s plays” still had a goal to be entertaining. There was still a “production” behind it, editing it all together and what not. Now people just hit record and you see it all in real time. I understand people that stream that are just starting or their very small or even they just don’t have any friends that are interested in the same things they are can find a small group of people to hang out with and I think that’s great but when you have streamers that have millions of subscribers and people just flood their chat it’s like “what are you doing, they’re probably not even looking at chat.” I think that’s why I like Vtubers is because they’re still a “character.” They still have a thin veil of production and creativity to them that I appreciate. Most of the people I used to watch, now do podcasts or streaming and that’s not what I want to watch. Cr1tikal streams, H3 has a podcast, BirgirPall, what are they even doing now? When I was trying to do the Vtuber thing I had a goal to do what I would want to watch. I had a backstory for my character and a setting, for lack of a better word, that I thought was interesting and people would have fun with. But right before I was all ready I started thinking about basically any and all of my free time was going to be dealing with this. Editing, uploading, dealing with unforeseen problems, not really something I wanted to deal with while already having a full time job. If I got fired tomorrow then yeah, it would defiantly be something I’d think about doing because I’d have the time. I’m getting off track…
So, all these things going to streaming only, what happens when the internet goes down? I remember one point last year maybe, year before, where something happened on Spectrum's end and the whole East Coast had no internet and people were losing their god damn minds. For us it wasn’t a big deal, just grabbed a movie off the shelf and started watching it and that has always been my stance on physical media. I HAVE this, so I can watch it whenever. I don’t think I ever suspected them to stop making physical versions of movies and shows and that brings up a different problem for me specifically. Movies go digital, games go digital, what’s the point of making Blu Ray players anymore? Sure I have movies but what happens when I can’t watch them? Is my PS5 going to be the newest and last Blu Ray playing thing I’ll own? I imagine someone will continue to make them but it’ll be like, one model which is fine, if it works it works. I’m very old school. I still use an alarm clock because I don’t trust my phone, I still have a house phone though it is not a traditional landline, I just have it so annoying things don’t call ME they call the house but even that is changing because doctors offices and such are sending text reminders about appointments but if my house phone is the phone on record then I’m not getting those. I’d feel better in my house phone was a landline just so if internet was down I could still use it but I wouldn’t know who even still offers that service.
What’s crazy to me is the amount of people that are just okay with this. They’re just okay with all these subscriptions in their lives and I don’t understand it. We really are moving towards BlackRock’s dream of “own nothing, be happy.” I’m all for being a minimalist but there are some things that I want to hold in my hands. The other problem this poses is for the secondhand, small businesses. I like to buy locally if I can instead of buying from Amazon or GameStop. There’s a few stores around that I’ll go to to get new CDs, movies and games but if everything goes digital these stores have to close up shop, that’s not great. And when I do go to the local stores I try to pay with cash because even using a card costs them money. I didn’t know this til overhearing a restaurant owner this past year talk about how much they lose a year due to card transactions. A lot of libraries have movies and even video games you can rent out which is great especially if you’re trying to stay away from these subscription services or can’t afford it. It’s just sad the direction we’re going towards. Instead of saving money, finding ways to essentially help each other out by borrowing things, reusing things; companies are forcing us down this path of being dependent on them. It’s like make the disease and sell the antidote. “Oh what? Your car doesn’t have a CD player? That’s weird, well, you can give us some money and listen to ad filled, poor quality garbage, does that sound good to you?” I bet if you look hard enough you can find Apple giving all these car companies a shit ton of money to stop putting CD players in their vehicles. It’s all stacked against us. This is what “freedom is slavery” looks like.
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