Several weeks ago, I was at a friend's place and noticed he owned a Blu-ray copy of a movie I was interested in.

I borrowed it and watched it.

The ease of that scenario used to be the default.

The movie I saw was Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa.

If I wanted to watch it on my own, I would have to either get a copy myself or subscribe to HBO Max and watch it in not-4K quality.

But because my friend has physical media, I was able to borrow it and watch it ASAP.

This will become more and more impossible if tech companies get their way.

As you may have heard, Sony is halting the production of PlayStation discs starting in 2028.

Now, I've pretty much bowed out of modern gaming as of a couple of years ago, so I don't care too much.

I'm playing Game Boy games now, for the most part.

But that makes me sad, because on that same day—or same week, whatever—Sony also announced they were killing the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita stores.

Those consoles have been obsolete for about 10 years now.

But if you have PS3 discs or Vita cartridges, you can still play them.

When there are no more discs, and then they close down those digital storefronts, you are screwed.

You literally won't get the chance to own any of these games.

I used to be all in on digital.

I thought it was very convenient and saved a lot of space.

In some ways, that's still true.

But I no longer think it's that convenient anymore.

With all the account management, the passwords, the limitations, and the random removal of products from storefronts, I don't think it's that convenient anymore.

Sure, you can watch or read anything digitally within minutes.

But what about when you can't?

What about when the internet's down?

What about when the licenses run out or expire?

What about when people tangentially involved with the work are canceled and the product is pulled from storefronts?

When you buy a game, book, or movie physically, you have that forever.

Now, with games, it's a different story because recently games have become more like you buy the disc and then have to download the rest of the game.

You still have to connect to the internet and yada yada.

But pre-PS4, any game you bought, you could just play offline.

It didn't matter.

The same goes for all other physical media.

You buy it, you can use it.

It's totally fine.

You don't have to worry about licenses, storefronts, or companies going out of business.

You have it.

▵ Here's my plea to you: don't be so entranced by the convenience of digital to the point where you don't have anything.

▵ It's nice to be able to lend a friend a movie.

▵ It's nice to let someone borrow a book you think they would like.

▵ It's nice to just give a friend a game you don't care about anymore.

None of this is possible with digital.

If you like it, please buy it.

You might not get a chance to use it later otherwise.

By the way, I've been working on a course for tech workers that will prevent burnout by using systems to not drown in the technology you're forced to use for work.

Essentially, it's the ultimate work-life separator.

Stay tuned for The Sane Tech Worker’s OS.

Till next time,

Kevin Tejada