physical

I’ve always been suspicious of music streaming because I knew they couldn’t adopt the performance and neighbouring rights of radio because it would make their operations unprofitable but could adopt radio’s vetting, which would cause artists to not only get almost nothing but for some to get shoved aside for recordings that have already garnered mass interest.

Now AI is flooding streaming services and resulting in no royalty payments as recordings are entirely removed because they were popular enough in the states or the United Kingdom, causing people to wonder where their favourite tracks went.

I have always recommended the purchase of film on a physical format because of how fickle the streaming services are and now the situation has worsened in music, causing compact disc sales to resurge upwards as people see other industries go digital, like Sony’s Playstation game console.

Gamers have learned that discs will no longer be produced for this console in 2028 and that the games they purchased online could suddenly disappear from their consoles, some releases having already been delisted. And this resulted in a notable consumer backlash, including a petition that reached over 360,000 signatures in less than two months.

It has become quite clear that these companies are no longer catering to their customers demands but pandering to upper middle class urbanite and sub-urbanite with high speed internet, that accept the opinions of what’s popular according to the companies.

The promise that we would have access to everything and for a reasonable cost, is now gone. And that physical media is the only way to go whilst streaming is simply a means to preview popular films, television programs and music.

For example, when New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away last month one could easily find the vast majority of his most popular films, including Jurassic Park and my favourite of his films, The Hunt For Red October. But Australian thriller Dead Calm is not available for streaming or purchase for download in Canada, anywhere.

This film got a high ranking at Rotten Tomatoes whilst Bicentennial Man got very low rankings, yet the later is available on Apple TV for purchase because people know it and still like it, like yours truly. And this means our personal preferences are all subject to arbitrary judgements by these corporations.

Multiple generations that have grown up with VHS, DVD and blu-ray rentals are noticing the films of their childhood were either available only for a short time on the streaming services or were never on them in the first place. And they have been purchasing them on whatever physical format is available, causing them to expand their purchases to compact discs en masse since 2025.

I, for one, will probably purchase Godzilla Minus Zero after this film’s initial release in November 2026 because foreign sequels in a language other than English tend to only remain online when it has matched or surpassed the original release‘s popularity. And I will continue encouraging everyone to at least consider purchasing greatest hits compilations on compact disc, so that fans still have their very favourite singles if the streaming services decide to slim down their catalogs and replace recordings with similar sounding tracks made with artificial intelligence.

I am not discouraging the use of streaming services, which are great if you already have the recordings that you listen to on vinyl and/or compact disc and when you want to preview recordings. But if you truly love an album, consider getting it on vinyl and/or, just in case.