For a long time, streaming felt like it was the future. I remember it being sold to us as a form of liberation; no more cluttered shelves filled with VHS tapes / DVDs / Blu-ray purchase, goodbye scratched discs and rewinding tapes. For a single monthly fee, we were promised to access to everything we would want to watch. Movies, TV Shows all at the click of a few buttons.
For a while, it worked.
But somewhere along the way, that promised started to quietly disappear. Streaming didn’t become the all you can eat buffet we were led to believe. Instead, it started turning into a labyrinth of paywalls, disappearing libraries, tiered subscription models, and that niggling feeling that nothing we loved truly belonged to us. What once felt convenient now feels exploitative.
This is why I’ve fallen back in love with physical media.
I’d love to say it was out of nostalgia, it wasn’t, it was out of frustration.
It was out of a desire for ownership, streaming platforms do not offer this. Buying used DVDs and Blu-ray discs has been my quiet little rebellion against an industry that wants me to rent forever.
This isn’t really about discs, it’s about taking back control and the growing realisation that streaming services didn’t replace physical media, it replaced ownership with permission.
The Streaming Lie: “You’ll have Everything”
Streaming platforms started rising to dominance by selling a key idea: access is better than true ownership. Why would anyone want to buy individual movies or albums when you can stream all the media you want for the same price of a boxed set? Why would you want to clutter up your shelves with DVDs?
What streaming actually gave us wasn’t ownership, it gave us temporary licensing agreements. Every show and movie you see on a platform is there because of a contract, and like with all contracts, there is a expiry date.
This is something we didn’t notice at first. The catalogs available at our fingertips was massive, prices we were paying were low, and platforms competed with each other. But as time went on, that started to change.
Now, instead of one or two services, we’re expected to subscribe to half a dozen just to be able to access the media we used to be able to access. Which led to a worse experience.
Paying a Subscription, Then Paying Again
I find the most insulting developments in any streaming service we now have is the rise of double-paying.
Get this – you pay a monthly subscription. You accept ads, or pay extra to remove them. After all that, you see the dreaded sentence “This title is available to rent or buy”.
Once that would have been rare, now it’s standard practice.
Films that were once included in your subscription have been quietly removed and placed behind rental fees. Any new films are behind a pay-wall. Older films rotate in and out without any rhyme or reason.
So what exactly are we paying for?
It certainly isn’t ownership, not guaranteed access. Not even consistency.
You are expected to pay more.
A Secondhand physical copy, on the other hand, is clear. You pay once. You take it home. It works on your DVD Player / Blu-ray player, and will continue to work.
There’s no hidden fees.
You Don’t Own Your Digital Media Purchases
When a streaming platform allows us to ‘buy’ the title digitally, the ownership is largely an illusion.
What we’re actually purchasing is a license to access that content under specific terms. Those terms can change at any time. Platforms shut down, accounts could be suspended, title could be removed due to a possible licensing dispute, and censorship concerns.
There are so many stories out there where people have lost access to their digital libraries where they have spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds.
When it comes to physical format, ownership is literal. The disc is on your shelf. No one can revoke it from you, no server outage can make it disappear. It’s yours.
The permanent access matters more than we are led to believe.
When Titles Leaves a Streaming Platform
One of the things that bugs me the most about streaming culture is when they’re gone.
If you’re in the middle of watching a TV show, it could vanish the next day and you’re left with ‘what happened next’.
Streaming services increasingly prioritise content they own outright. Anything that doesn’t fit that mold becomes expendable.
What I like about physical media is that it preserves what streaming services discards.
When I buy a secondhand DVD of a movie or TV show that isn’t available online (without an extra fee), I’m not buying entertainment, I feels as though I’m rescuing something from digital oblivion.
Streaming Services are Getting Greedy – And Don’t Hide it
I think it’s clear that the honeymoon period is over.
Streaming platforms are no longer fighting for subscribers, like they used to; they’re squeezing the ones they already have. Prices are going up, ad tiers are expanding, cracking down on sharing passwords, and user experience is cluttered with promotions.
The goal is no longer to serve the viewer – it’s to extract as much money as possible from each user.
Secondhand physical media exists outside that system.
- No adverts
- No upsells
- No ‘continue watching’ pressure
That simplicity seems so radical now.
The Joy of Browsing Physical Media
Something I absolutely love is browsing physical media, but I do have to be in the right mood for it.
Whether it’s at a charity shop, or a secondhand store, I absolutely love looking at the covers and seeing what I would like to buy, at a fraction of the cost of buying brand new. I recently found a title that I hadn’t watched since I was a child, Batteries Not Included and it was only 50 pence.
If you think about streaming platforms, they pretend to offer discovery, what they really offer is reinforcement. They are built on algorithms that show you what they think you’ll like, based on what you’ve already watched. Plus, they include special features and bonus content too, something you don’t get on while streaming.
Secondhand Media is Affordable in a Way Streaming Isn’t
Depending on the platform(s) you subscribe to, a single month of streaming could cost more than a Blu-ray boxed set.
Once that month is over, you’ve got nothing to show for it.
A Secondhand physical object accumulates value over time, I’m not talking about monetary value, but value in the experience you are building within your physical media collection. As your collection grows, your library becomes personal. Best of all, you can keep it for as long as you want.
Sustainability and Reuse
As an eco-blogger, this part is really key to why I purchase secondhand physical media. Buying secondhand is also an environmental choice. I don’t buy a DVD/Blu-ray for the sake of it, I buy something I really want in my DVD collection, something I know I will watch again.
You’re extending the life of something that already exists, keeping it out of landfills, you’re supporting reusing instead of constant consumption.
Streaming feels invisible, but it isn’t environmentally friendly. Data centres consume a large amount of energy. Constant streaming does have a real carbon footprint, it’s just that we can’t see it.
The Emotional Weight of Ownership
I get quite a bit of satisfaction of owning something outright, forging that emotional connection.
These objects carry memory in a way files and streaming doesn’t. I have a copy of He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special, a title I watched many times as a child. I’ve never been able to find it on a streaming platform and it’s something I have an emotional attachment to.
When Streaming stops being Convenient
Streaming is supposed to be easier. In its infancy, it was. But those days are gone.
We have to search across multiple platforms to find something we may wish to watch, hitting paywalls, internet connection issues like buffering, and even losing access altogether.
Physical media is much more reliable.
If there is something I want to watch that I own, I don’t need to battle faceless corporations, I can sit in my living room and just hit play.
Falling Back in Love Doesn’t Mean Moving Backwards
I’m a huge fan of technological advancement, I embrace technology so this isn’t about rejecting technology. For me, It’s about rejecting a model that prioritises profit, access to ownership, and control.
Secondhand physical media isn’t outdated, it’s resilient.
- Platform showdowns? Nope
- Censorship? Certainly not
- It respects the viewer? Absolutely
Conclusion
I didn’t fall back in love with physical media because I hate streaming. I currently subscribe to Disney+ and Amazon Prime, although, I’m very close to cancelling my Amazon Prime account. I fell back in love because streaming stopped caring about me as a consumer.
What started out as convenience slowly evolved into compromise. What started out as access evolved into restriction.
Secondhand physical media gives me something streaming services never truly did – certainty. I started buying DVDs and Blu-rays in late 2025. There was a TV show I really wanted to watch called Blue Bloods and I could only find a handful of seasons on a streaming service. On top of that, it had adverts so I would have to pay to watch the TV ad-free. It’s supposed to be easy access but not really consumer friendly. So I started thinking about other titles I wish I had. I started buying them secondhand and it was something I really enjoyed. I’m buying something that has already been produced, it’s not going to landfill, and the price is totally affordable.
Certainty that what I have just bought will still be there tomorrow, next week or even next year.
Certainty that no-one is going to ask me to pay again.
In a world where everything feels temporary, owning something real feels a bit like being a rebel.
This is why, one charity shop at a time, I’m choosing physical media again.
