I am of a certain generation and grew up owning my entertainment. I bought the vinyl (Billy Joel’s Glass Houses was my first ever), bought the CDs (Aja by Steely Dan was the first in that category), and bought the books as well (my shelves are stacked with old James Patterson books, including a signed first edition of Along Came a Spider).
I can tell you about my firsts, but making a list of the “lasts” I bought in each category – now that’s a challenge.
Why? Well, because like many other people, for the past 15 years or so, I’ve gradually traded ownership for access. Spotify replaced the CD collection. Netflix replaced the DVD shelf. Kindle and Audible put hundreds of books at my fingertips.
Technology made all of that easier and more convenient and helped cut down on the clutter. Convenience is the name of the game, but the tradeoff comes at a cost: when you stop owning the content, you also give up some control over it.
Don’t think of it as “retro is cool again” – some consumers are starting to reconsider the tradeoff.
The ownership problem
When you subscribe to Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, Max, etc., you’re essentially paying for access to a changing library. Movies appear months or weeks after being released in a theater, but they also disappear. How many times have you seen a banner or subhead under a movie title saying, “Leaving Soon”? Movies and TV shows can jump from service to service. Music that was available one day can disappear the next.
Of course, that’s a big part of the deal with a subscription: you’re paying for access to whatever happens to be included in the service’s library at the time – not buying everything in it. But the distinction becomes a little murkier when you actually click a button that says “buy.”
In 2009, Amazon remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from customers’ Kindle devices after they had purchased and downloaded them because the editions had been sold through a third party that did not have the rights to distribute the books.
It was an unusual case and Amazon later acknowledged it had handled the situation badly. But the case also demonstrated something consumers hadn’t necessarily considered: buying a digital copy isn’t always the same thing as owning a physical one.
Buy a book at a bookstore, and the bookstore can’t come to your house and take the book back. Buy a CD, and you don’t need the record label’s servers to keep listening to it. If you own a DVD, it doesn’t stop playing or disappear from your shelf when a licensing agreement expires.
Digital media can work differently.
The content may be tied to an account, a platform, compatible software, or licensing terms. An audiobook purchased through Audible, for example, remains tied to the Audible ecosystem. You bought access to that copy, but you don’t necessarily have the same freedom to use, transfer, or resell it that you would with a physical book or CD.
In other words, something marketed as a digital purchase doesn’t necessarily give consumers the same ownership rights as buying a physical copy. The distinction became significant enough that California lawmakers stepped in. In 2024, the state passed AB 2426, restricting sellers from using terms such as “buy” or “purchase” for certain digital goods unless consumers are clearly told they’re receiving a license – or unless that purchase provides unrestricted ownership.
That doesn’t make streaming or digital purchases a bad deal. For millions of consumers, the convenience is precisely why we embraced them in the first place. But convenience and ownership aren’t the same thing.
And increasingly, consumers have another question to consider: Which one is the better deal?
The economics of owning vs. renting
One consequence of trading ownership for access is this: streaming can make you pay for the same content forever.
- Streaming: low upfront cost + recurring payments
- Physical: higher upfront cost + essentially zero ongoing cost
Suppose you love The Office. Buy the complete series on DVD, and you pay for it once. As long as you have the discs and something that can play them, they’re yours to watch. Streaming, however, changes that equation. Instead of buying the show, you’re paying for access to a library that includes it – and you’ll continue paying for that access every month. Stop paying, and you stop watching.
That makes the economics fundamentally different because while streaming offers a relatively low upfront cost and access to an enormous library, the payments never really end. Physical media costs more upfront, but once you’ve bought it, there’s no monthly bill just to keep watching or listening to it.
Now that doesn’t necessarily make physical media cheaper, because if you watch hundreds of different movies and shows every year, a streaming subscription can be an extraordinary bargain. But for the movies, television shows, albums, and books you return to again and again, buying instead of perpetually renting access can eventually become the better deal.
The calculation has also become more complicated as the number of streaming services has grown. A consumer who once replaced a cable bill with a Netflix subscription may now pay separately for Netflix, Disney+, Max, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV, and others – sometimes because a particular movie or television show is available on only one of them.
And that’s where owning something can change the math.
You don’t need to maintain every subscription forever just to preserve access to the relatively small number of titles you know you’ll want to watch again. And apparently, some consumers are beginning to rediscover that idea in a format many of us had already written off.
Wait – CDs are back?
When I first started researching this story, I expected to go down the path of something like, “Boomers and Gen X refuse to throw away their CDs!” OK, true (see paragraph 1), but the latest boom in sales of physical media isn’t coming exclusively from those two generations – younger consumers are increasingly embracing it, too.
And nowhere is that more apparent than in a format that not long ago appeared destined to join the cassette tape and 8-track in technological history: the compact disc.
According to entertainment data company Luminate, U.S. CD sales surged 16% to 16.3 million units during the first half of 2026. By comparison, vinyl record sales – the physical format that has received much of the attention for its own comeback – increased just 2.4%.
Part of that growth can be traced to K-pop, where buying an album has become about much more than getting a disc containing the music. Releases can include collectible photo cards, elaborate packaging, alternate versions, and other extras designed for fans. Luminate says K-pop helped physical music sales capture nearly 30% of the mass-market physical sales market during the first half of this year.
But K-pop doesn’t explain all of it. Take those sales out of the equation, and Luminate says U.S. CD sales were still up 6.7% during the first half of the year.
And some younger consumers aren’t just buying the discs – they’re buying the machines needed to play them. In England, retailer John Lewis recently reported searches for CD players were up 96%, with some popular models selling out online, fueled by a renewed interest in the medium by younger consumers.
There are several possible reasons why.
- CDs are tangible and collectible.
- They often include artwork and liner notes.
- They don’t require an internet connection.
- And unlike vinyl – where a new album can easily cost $30 or more – CDs can offer a relatively inexpensive way to own a physical copy of the music you love.
But here’s where the comeback gets particularly interesting: streaming isn’t going away. Luminate notes that 2026 has so far seen U.S. CD sales jump 16% and global on-demand audio streaming also increase 9.8%.
In other words, consumers aren’t necessarily choosing between Spotify and a CD collection – increasingly, they’re doing both.
Movies: Don’t call it a comeback (yet)
And yes, I know exactly which LL Cool J song is probably playing in your head right now. You’re welcome.
If CDs are experiencing something of a revival, the numbers for movies require an asterisk. Americans are still spending less on DVDs and Blu-rays than they once did – a lot less. But something interesting happened last year: the decline slowed.
According to the Digital Entertainment Group, after U.S. spending on physical movies fell 23.4% in 2024, spending on DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K Ultra HD discs continued to decline in 2025 – but by a much smaller 9.3%. But buried inside that decline was one format actually moving in the opposite direction: spending on 4K Ultra HD discs increased 12%.
That’s hardly enough to declare victory over streaming, but it does suggest there remains a market for consumers who want to own the movies they care about. And just like CDs, younger consumers appear to be part of what’s keeping that market alive.
Earlier this year, an article in The Los Angeles Times outlined increased rentals, purchases, and foot traffic in some video stores, particularly among younger customers. Barnes & Noble, one of the few major retailers that still dedicates shelf space to physical movies, told the newspaper its DVD and Blu-ray sales increased by “mid-double digits” over the previous year.
Part of the appeal goes back to the ownership problem we talked about earlier. A movie that isn’t available on Netflix today might show up on Max tomorrow, move to another service six months later, or simply become difficult to find at all. A disc sitting on your shelf doesn’t care which streaming service currently owns the rights.
But the physical movie business is also changing.
Rather than simply selling a plastic case with a movie inside, the strongest part of the market increasingly appears to be aimed at people willing to pay more for something special: 4K restorations, limited editions, collectible packaging, and SteelBooks.
DVDs and Blu-rays probably aren’t headed back to the checkout aisle at every big-box store as streaming remains overwhelmingly more convenient for most of what we watch. But for a favorite movie – particularly one you can’t count on finding online tomorrow – some consumers apparently still want something they can keep on the shelf.
And books never left
If CDs are coming back and physical movies are at least showing signs of life, books are a different story. They never really went away.
Americans bought 762.4 million print books in 2025, slightly more than in 2024, marking the second consecutive year of increased print book sales. And while e-books and audiobooks have certainly found an audience, neither has replaced the printed page.
According to a 2026 Pew Research Center survey, 64% of American adults said they had read at least part of a print book during the previous year, compared with 31% who read an e-book and 26% who listened to an audiobook. Even younger readers aren’t abandoning paper. Among adults ages 18 to 29, 66% said they had read a print book during the previous year – compared with 41% who read an e-book and 32% who listened to an audiobook.
In other words, Kindle and other e-readers didn’t do to books what Spotify did to CDs or Netflix did to DVDs.
Why? Price may be one part of the reason; personal preference may be another.
An e-book can cost less than a physical copy, but depending on the title and format, the difference isn’t always substantial. And unlike a physical book, that digital copy generally can’t be resold, loaned in quite the same way, or placed on a shelf when you’re finished with it. But there may also be something about the experience itself. We’ve always watched movies on a screen whether the source was Netflix, a Blu-ray, a DVD, or even a VHS tape. The delivery system changed, but the basic experience didn’t.
Books are different.
Moving from a printed book to an e-reader means changing the thing you’re physically interacting with. There’s no cover to pick up, no pages to turn, and no growing stack of pages on the left side telling you you’re finally making progress through that 600-page novel.
And how many times have you heard someone say – or said it yourself – “I just prefer to hold the actual book.”
The numbers suggest plenty of readers still do.
So, what should you actually own?
Anything you want!
Streaming isn’t dying and ownership isn’t replacing it. Consumers are simply beginning to see that the two can serve different purposes.
Streaming still makes tremendous sense for discovering new music, watching a movie once, binging a new television series, or having access to a massive library without buying hundreds of individual titles. In fact, streaming remains overwhelmingly dominant – subscription streaming accounted for more than 92% of U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment in 2025.
But ownership can make sense for the things you know you want to keep.
Maybe that’s the movie you watch every Christmas, an album from your favorite artist, the television series you’ve already watched three times, or the book you know you’ll eventually read again. A physical copy also gives you something a subscription can’t: the ability to keep it regardless of what happens to a streaming service, licensing agreement, or monthly subscription.
And unlike a digital license, physical media can generally be loaned to a friend, given away, resold, or simply left sitting on a shelf for 20 years until you suddenly decide you want it again.
If you can afford it, stream broadly, own selectively. Because maybe the future of entertainment isn’t physical or digital – maybe it’s renting the things we want and owning the things we love.