You will own nothing...

How many games do you own? Music albums? Books? Movies?

Now, how much of them do you actually own?

As we're all acutely aware these days, most media that we buy online is not something we actually own. Sure, we can buy it, but all we've done is buy the right to access it whenever we want, subject to specific terms and conditions.

For example, I have over 2700 games on Steam. But if Valve were to overnight collapse catastrophically and Steam went offline, or if for whatever reason my account got banned, not a single one of those games would be accessible. And I would have no way of doing so.

Netflix, Spotify, YouTube/YT Music, Amazon Prime/Kindle, Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll, Xbox Game Store/GamePass, among many others, all services where even if you pay them an extra fee to "buy" something, you still don't own it.

No other storefront has reinforced this idea moreso than Sony. As I'm sure you're by now aware, Sony recently stated that as of January 2028, they would no longer be producing physical media for PlayStation games.

Now, considering the other services mentioned above, I'm sure Sony made that decision thinking no-one would bat an eyelid...

Man, were they wrong.

They've since faced over two months of anger and backlash, not only from enraged customers, but also from developers who release their games on PlayStation.

But, why is this such a big deal? Well, the very same day, Sony announced that they would be killing the PS3 and PS Vita stores, meaning users who still owned those systems would be dead in the water.

And less than a week before that, that they would be revoking access to over 550 films people had added to their PSN libraries, even those that they had "purchased".

Why is Sony different though? Is it because people trust Valve, for example, to treat them with the respect that Sony don't? Maybe. Certainly I trust Valve a LOT more than Sony.

Is it because people know upfront that the likes of Netflix, Spotify and Disney+, services that are streaming only and don't have the option to purchase specific media, that once you pay their cover charge everything is accessible for as long as it exists on the service. As such they have no expectation of owning anything on stream-only services? Possibly.

Amazon are just as bad as Sony, as they have previous when it comes to removing purchased media from devices that people own, because a licencing agreement has expired or some-such nonsense.

This was one of the main reasons I stopped using Kindle and backed up all of my purchased Kindle books and bought a Kobo Clara Colour and put them on there. That and the announcement that Amazon were going to stop customers from downloading their purchased books to make personal backups to avoid such situations in future.

As an aside, Calibre is an excellent program for managing your eBook library...

No doubt Sony will carry on with their plans, regardless of the backlash, but it has writ large the widespread corporate mantra that you will own nothing and are expected to be happy about it.

Exceptions

Games

GoG is slightly different from most digital game storefronts. They give you access to download game installers and extra Special Edition media, which you have the right to backup to your own devices and keep forever. All of their games are sold DRM free, which not only makes ownership of your purchases there entirely possible, it is central to their operating ethos.

Music

Bandcamp has recently fired a significant portion of its engineering staff, so the ability to download and backup your purchases in case of catastrophe might be put to the test sooner than anticipated, but for music, it's currently still an option.

Books

Kobo sell eBooks without DRM attached at publishers' requests. These mainly come from publishers such as Tor Books (not that Tor) or Macmillan Sci-Fi. And their eReaders are remarkably open and easily moddable. For example on my Kobo Clara Colour, I have a mod that installed a clock in the top right of the page, a feature the original OS didn't have. Pair a Kobo with Calibre to remove DRM where it does exist, means you can truly own your books again.

Physical Media

The ever reliable option, for as long as it exists. You bought it? You own it. You can do whatever the hell you like with it, it's yours. Use it repeatedly for life, lend it to a friend, sell it, stick it in a drawer for years and forget about it, hell burn it if you really want. But the important thing is that the option is yours, and it's there, and that's what counts. This is clearly the ultimate option.

...and a bottle of rum.

If buying isn't owning, then it isn't stealing, right? Right?

Keeping control

There are various options for keeping control of your media, and self-hosting and ripping your disks can and perhaps should form a part of that plan. Buying from services that allow you to have ownership of your purchases is another big part of that plan.

And refusing to give your money to those who would see you own nothing? Well that should perhaps be something to consider too.

Find the things you love, the books, the games, the movies and the music, and make them yours, because tomorrow they could be gone forever...