To have and to hold

I've written previously about how, when it comes to books, music and films, my love for the physical artefact endures. Some might see me as stuck in the past, clinging to soon-to-be-obsolete formats such as the CD. And yet it turns out that my kind of cultural materialism is on the rise, and that physical media are actually enjoying a revival of fortunes.

The trend is being driven by the actions of major corporations such as Sony, who are able to increase prices for accessing digital formats or even remove that access altogether as they like - even if you've already paid for it. It's just been announced that Disney+ are amending their subscription agreement to allow for ads, even for supposedly ad-free packages.

It seems that consumers are increasingly realising that both being at the whims of such corporations and the ephemerality of digital formats/streaming is a problem. This isn't so much a case of fetishising the physical object as understanding the value of conventional ownership, and knowing that having a book, a record or a film on a shelf means that you can't be deprived of it.