Superemo
Constructive!
|
I personally use almost entirely digital media. In my opinion, the tradeoffs lean heavily in favor of digital being the way to go.
Digital media has an insurmountable advantage in terms of both portability and storage due entirely to the fact it does not take up physical space. Were I to own physical copies of all the albums I currently own digital copies of, I wouldn't just need to clear off more shelf space, I'd need more shelves.
While we're on the topic of ownership, there's also the issue of how quickly you'll own your copy of the media. With physical media, you'll need to either go to a brick and mortar store and buy a copy (which will take a chunk of time out of one day), or you'll need to order online and wait for shipping (which will take several small chunks of time out of a few days). With digital media, you'll just need to download it after your purchase the media, during which time you can do other things.
And for the final big point in favor of digital media, there's the potential issue of damage. The first copy of Fallout 3 I owned was a physical copy. It got cracked when my little brother threw the case, not knowing the disc was in said case. I had to shell out another $30 for a used copy of the game, because one hairline thin, eyelash-length crack damaged the disc enough that it wouldn't read. Had it been a digital copy, it would have taken destruction of the hard drive or deletion of the game data for the game to no longer be playable.
This all being said, I do understand the appeal of physical media. There's just something about a book that no eBook will ever have. It's a sense of "realness", if that makes any sense. It's why I still own printed copies of works that are in the public domain. Albums, too, have their own distinct flair present in the more archaic formats. Vinyl has a fuller sound than any MP3 ever will, and uncompressed audio files take up a fair bit of disc space (speaking from personal experience, Ghost's album Meloria takes up almost half a gig in .WAV format) and generally aren't available from digital distributors. There's also the album art, but a fairly large number of bands have started including digital copies of their booklets with digital copies of their albums, so that might become a non-issue soon.
|
Printable Version
Icon Legend
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread
