[Syonyk]

Yup. Sound right.

The time spent re-ripping my CD collection to FLAC, my DVD collection to MKV, etc, has been well spent. I can rapidly enough transcode from that to "Whatever I happen to need for where I'm listening to it," and our vehicles have quite the range of local music and audiobook content for road trips that doesn't rely on streaming anything.

You can get CDs for (usually) very little on eBay, same for DVDs, and I don't have to worry about the pissing matches between a corporate conglomerate that views me as "a wallet with eyeballs" and another one that views me as "eyeballs with a wallet" getting in the way.

Meanwhile, vinyl sales continue to skyrocket, and more and more people are interested in records, growing collections, refurbishing old equipment (both to produce and play records), etc. I expect these are rather heavily correlated, because in 50 years from now, nobody is going to be able to play any of the streaming "content" that flows around. "This is my grandparents favorite Spotify playlist" won't be a thing, but you can certainly go cruising through old photo albums, old record collections, etc.

I remain optimistic that we're in the starting phases of a rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital consumer tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff exactly like this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over "actually doing something people want to pay money for."

Google and Disney both seem to be demonstrating that once people lose trust in you, it's basically impossible to get it back. Nobody trusts a new Google product will last more than a year or two, which leads to it getting killed off for lack of use, and Disney/Pixar seem to have forgotten that the purpose of the entertainment industry is to "entertain the people who might want to see your movie." Other studios are doing fine, so there's clearly a demand, but Disney has been dropping an impressive string of box office bombs lately, because a lot of people no longer trust them.

[taylodl]

I remain optimistic that we're in the starting phases of a rejection of the online [handwaves at everything digital consumer tech], and it's going to be aided greatly by stuff exactly like this. Profits and corporate pissing matches over "actually doing something people want to pay money for."

Your optimism is unfounded. Gen Z thinks it's cool to own an album or two, but they're not building collections. Scrap booking is popular right now, but it's not quite the same thing as photo albums. Everything is ephemeral and by and large they're just fine with that.

[Syonyk]

They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content, or to data-mine the scrapbook, your albums, etc, for listening data and such (though I imagine a smart TV with a mic will try).

That's a good direction to see movement in. They're not doing "online scrapbooks" or something. And given the long standing records of "What you said 15 years ago online is used to ruin you today," ephemeral, or "not online in the first place," makes a lot of sense.

I'm certainly glad my entire school experience wasn't logged in great detail...

[toast0]

> They're physical things, interacted in the physical world, without any way for the companies involved to claw back the content

Oh, there's ways. In the 90s, there was a rental scheme with sealed discs that would degrade in air to become unusable within a week. (At least that was upfront, if wasteful). I've had one at least CD rot from the inside, and it's a major issue for LaserDiscs. Careful material science could make this the norm.

[deanCommie]

Gen Z is young, have no money, have no optimism for the future, are completely un-technical when it comes to computers, but are EXTREMELY technical when it comes to understanding apps, social media, and weird frustrations like this one.

It remains to be seen once they enter the job market, and despite the cultural perspective inevitably many do succeed, and start making money.

I wouldn't be surprised if they absolutely do focus more on physical media. They are rejecting Instagram look-obsessive culture, and look fondly at what we did in the 2000s when every Party meant a 50-photo Facebook Photo dump, 49 of which would never be "good enough" to make it to Instagram these days.

[cellwebb]

Gen Z is already in the job market. The eldest are in their mid 20s.

[jerf]

"Everything is ephemeral and by and large they're just fine with that."

Today.

Young people being fine with that when they are still in flux is not a new thing. A 21-year-old being nostalgic is almost the basis for a comedy sketch more than a serious concern. I'm not yet convinced they've broken any human patterns when they're still fitting fairly comfortably into the existing patterns on that. If anything I'd bet they're going to discover a larger desire for a foundation than anyone else because the "default" ones have been ripped away and they can't just sort of settle into an existing one easily.

[taylodl]

Photo albums and music recordings didn’t even exist until the 20th century. What did we do for tens of thousands of years before that?

Told stories.

And what is TikTok and Instagram at the end of the day? The modern means for telling stories.

The 20th century was an aberration of human history. We don’t need to cling to it.

[jerf]

Told stable stories, generally in a stable culture.

The 20th century is indeed an abberation; the 21st a bigger one.

[taylodl]

I suspect what you're calling a stable story are the myths, legends, and lore that comprise a culture?

If so, I would argue those are cultural stories.

I was thinking more along the lines of family stories, personal stories, friends stories and things like that.

If not, then what is a stable story?

[derwiki]

eBay aside, my city’s library has a shockingly large collection of CDs and DVDs! Although i guess that’s technically closer to piracy.