RE: Why we need to support physical media
Ten years ago I was pro convenience. With the ability to have thousands of songs in my iPod I always thought this should happen everywhere, it's more practical. I bought an R4 for my DS Lite and got the roms for all the games I owned and a lot that I never bought. Then I found out I didn't care fore the pirated ones: If I illegally downloaded something was mostly for testing, both I usually never spent more than 2 hours on it.
Being able to carry as many DS titles with me made me realize that with so much options I with me I was playing less and less.
More recently I started buying and collecting vinyl records. Then it struck me: Having to stand up, put the record on, place the needle (here we say needle contrary to "stylus". Not a hipster thing) is an effort that made me appreciate more the music I was playing. Then after some 20-30 minutes I had to get up again and flip the disc. That's when I realized what in 2006-2008 I first experienced with roms in the R4.
I don't own a kindle anymore. For the times that I had (all three I've had are now with former girlfriends) I never had more than 1 title on it: The one I was interested on reading. I saw (nor see now) reason to have 1000 titles with me, unless it's a references book.
Physical media also means investment: You can gift or resale your music, games or books, but it becomes tricky with iTunes purchases or Nintendo digital games. You could do a yard sale and get some money, exchange them, put them on eBay, but couldn't do so with digital media, that's the investment part. Maybe it will be worth a lot in 20 years, who knows.
Physical media also means support: Here in Venezuela the music industry doesn't work as in the US. Independent artists (most nowadays) put a lot from their pockets to record and produce their music. When they sell that in venues, concerts, stores, that money goes back go them not only as a return of their investment but as profit. And I really like them to profit from their work as I profit from mine. And I really like the idea of they getting the money to pay for their loans instead making the middleman (record company in this case) richer.
Excellent points. You raise an interesting point about the act of playing a record. It does make you more connected to the media. It becomes more of an experience than just making a few clicks on a device or computer.
Video games are the same way, where no emulator can capture the feeling of plugging a real cartridge into a game console.