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The History and Future of Digital Ownership
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this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Digital media means that there is an ongoing service behind it. The servers use energy. The parts age and break. It requires a continuing feed of labor and resources to keep going.
Imagine a streaming service that is all based on buying media, instead of subscription or renting. Then suppose all the customers somehow decide that the media they own are enough for now (maybe because money is tight, because inflation). With no more cash coming in, the service goes bankrupt.
In principle, you could have a type of license that allows you to get a new copy in any way you can (torrent, etc.). That would be hard to police, though.
FWIW, owning a physical copy isn't all that, either. There are various ways built-in to make life harder for customers, like geo-blocking. Bypassing these tends to be a criminal offense.
And yet, somehow, GOG and Itch still exist, allowing you to download games completely DRM-free, as often as you like. If they ever go out of business, you can still use your local copies forever.
How do they do it? A mystery...
That takes a lot less bandwidth than streaming. All business have fixed costs. Blockbuster Video had to pay rent for physical stores, for example. Delivering via the net is relatively cheap compared to stores or physical postage. I'd be surprised if GOG's cost aren't much lower than anything physical.
Well then let me actually download the movie like it was a game, then! And how exactly does it take less bandwidth? It's still tens or hundreds of gigabytes to download every time someone wants to install a game, most people only use the offline installers as backups.
But how often do you install the same game? A streaming movie needs to be (partially) downloaded every time someone watches it. But yes, I shouldn't jump to the conclusion that this ends up being a higher bandwidth cost per dollar purchasing price.
When you keep a backup, then the download was basically just a way of delivering a physical copy. I answered why we can't have online property.
As to why many don't allow you to keep a private copy. For the obvious reason: To maintain control over their property and monetize it to the highest degree possible.