I am old enough to remember when audio cassette tapes were the go-to method of storing music. Not just the music albums from your favourite artists bought at the music store, but also the homemade mix tapes we made for ourselves and to give away to someone we liked and/or were hoping to woo. And since cassette players were ubiquitous in cars, it was far easier than vinyl records. Not to mention cheaper than CDs. Cassettes also held more music (90 minute audio cassette tapes were easily available even at K-Mart, as were 120 min tapes) than CDs (only 80 minutes).
Obviously, as CDs gained traction, CD burners for your computer became widely available, and since CDs aren't susceptible to magnetic fields, and the costs of CDs in general came down, they overtook cassettes. Even with their inherent limitation of not being able to fit as much music on them.
While I still keep my hardcopy music collection primarily on CD now, I still miss audio cassettes.
Similarly, I also miss VHS cassettes. Albeit currently buried in storage, I still have my old VHS library. Granted, my DVD collection has far surpassed my VHS collection overall, but I still have things like classic Doctor Who as it was aired on PBS in the States, meaning no adverts and all the individual eps within a serial were put together like a movie.
In terms of computers, admittedly,
I finally adopted Windows 3.11 when Windows 95 had been out for a few
years and Windows 98 was very soon to be hitting the market simply
because I liked DOS. I still miss DOS: my computer was only ever
infected with a virus once while running DOS and I was able to wipe my
hard drive completely, reinstall everything from 3.5" floppy disks that I
knew were not infected, and I was fully back up and running in
approximately in 45 minutes. Good luck doing that now.
Contrary to what you may be thinking I am not a technophobe, and I do still try to keep up with the times. Granted, I don't replace my mobile phone every year with the newest toy as I keep the same handset functioning as long as I can, replacing it only as I deem necessary. But mostly due to costs and I'm a Scottish Jew. (Think about it, it gets cheaper.) But it's more than mere cost issues.
I don't immediately adopt the newest tech as I've watched my even techier (dunno if that's actually a word, but I'm using it anyway) get burned by the bugs that hadn't been dealt with by the first patch. I also analyze not only the potential benefits but also the potential pitfalls.
As a result, I have not and will not get a DVR. Not only do I not pay for television, aside from box sets of seasons and complete series of shows I like, meaning I will never be paying for cable/streaming, but DVR has a massive drawback that VHS never had. It's a drawback that I witnessed from mother and father.
When they were living in Tennessee, they had accrued a sizeable collection of shows and movies on their DVR. Until they maxed out their DVR's storage capacity. Which served them well for a time. The great drawback was when they changed carriers for their television. Instantly, that collection on their DVR was permanently wiped out simply because they didn't own any of those recordings, and they had to turn in the DVR to their service provider and then rent a new DVR from their new service provider. The beauty of VHS was that it didn't matter whether or not you had cable, nor did it matter who your television service provider was. All that mattered was whether you still had access to a working VCR (Video Cassette Player, which allowed you to record your show of choice) or VCP (Video Cassette Player, which couldn't record but could still play back), and as for storage you just bought new blank VHS tapes and you were set to go on.
Prior to the general public being able to record music from the radio (adverts and all, or trimmed down to eliminate the adverts but with shorter versions of the songs than the actual albums would have) and shows from the telly, when a network decided to no longer air it, you were boned. The ability for the common person to record onto medium that they could physically hold onto changed all that.
Obviously, major entertainment corporations weren't happy about it as we were less dependent on them, so their profits dipped. But it seemed the ability to time shift, the vaguely technical term for recording shows, whether radio or television, and playing them back whenever we wanted to, seemed like would be with use forever.
Then mobile phone apps and streaming came along.
The newer generations latched onto it as it's the latest and greatest. All while missing the pitfall. A pitfall that I partially discovered the hard way.
Among other artists I am a fan of DJ Heavygrinder. At one point, I paid for her Love Letters mobile phone app. Like the rest of my music collection in general, I didn't listen to it every day. I was more of a sporadic thing. That is until what I thought I had bought was more like rented as I can lo longer load it onto my phone. It cannot even be found on Google Play. And since I was never able to find a hardcopy, that album is gone for good. I've looked.
Between streaming and tech like DVRs and cloud storage owned by other corporations which offer only the illusion of it being yours, corporations are once again gouging you. Even when you're paying them money as they're still monetizing everything that you let them store for you.
I insist on buying shows on DVD and music on CD simply because as long as I have the equipment to play them, I will be able to watch/listen to them any time I want to, even when I have absolutely zero internet access.
And I've been trying to get friends and neighbours to realize this for ages now. Unfortunately, the ones I couldn't convince are now discovering the hard way what I was trying to tell them.
Oops. I'm thinking it's safe to say that what's happening with Paramount is merely the beginning.
Now, while I have been talking about audio cassettes, VHS, etc, I am not opposed to having a digital copy as well. However, there are two caveats. First, that digital copy should really be in addition to a hardcopy, whether you're talking about books, music, or television/movies, etc.; and second, the only "cloud" storage should be physically accessible to you (e.g. external hard drive that you can disconnect from your computer and by extension the internet).
This also includes any personal projects you may be working on whether it be recordings of podcasts, books/articles you're writing, etc.
You should be certain that you can and do keep your own data.
by Rev. J.T. Smith
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