[philh]

I feel somewhat the same way about bookshelves. When you walk into my parents' house, the first thing you see is three bookshelves covering a wall, stacked as high as you can reach without a ladder. I was looking forward to getting my own when I moved out permanently. Now, I don't see that happening. (On the plus side, I won't have to fight my dad over who gets to keep what.)

But I'm sure people felt the same about vinyl records. And now, if I want to check out a friend's music taste, I just look at their iTunes. I'm not old enough to know whether it's quite the same, but I'm not sentimental enough to think we haven't made massive improvements.

I suspect DVDs will be the next to go. (I don't have a DVD player of my own, but I like to have my fairly small collection where people can see it.)

[hugh3]

I've bought a Nook, and I'm using it for reading on long journeys, but I'm being careful not to let it displace my book-buying habits, precisely because I want to be one of those people with a houseful of awesome books when I get older.

Therefore, my rule is this: I only use the Nook to read things which are public domain. There's more than enough public domain stuff I want to read out there to keep me occupied. But if I'm going to pay for something, it's gonna be a proper printed physical book which I can keep for the rest of my life.

[petercooper]

And now, if I want to check out a friend's music taste, I just look at their iTunes. I'm not old enough to know whether it's quite the same, but I'm not sentimental enough to think we haven't made massive improvements.

In some circumstances, you can even go a step further now. I stopped buying music about a year ago when I got a Spotify account and now 80-90% of my listening is through that.

I realized that most of my listening is to new/ephemeral stuff rather than stuff I want to listen to for years in which case, I'll just buy those albums if/when Spotify takes a dive.

[jonhendry]

The way I see it, a lot of my books are on my shelf through mere inertia, not because of any great love for them. They just happened to be physical when I acquired them, and as such, disposing of them is extra work. So they sit there.

In the future, I think I'll be reading books on my kindle, and then I'll consider whether the book merits a meatspace presence in my life. If so, I'll pick up a copy.

In the end, I'll likely have fewer books on my shelves, but what I do have will be a more meaningful representation of my tastes and values.