YES. Yes yes yes.

So there’s a YouTuber that I used to watch fairly regularly who would always vlog herself at various stores (Walmart, Target, other big-box stores in the southeast US). She got a lot of criticism for many of the things she did, but one thing that seemed to particularly irk people was the fact that she bought DVDs.

No, they weren’t irked at how many she bought.
No, they weren’t irked at what type of movies/shows she bought.

They were just irked that she “still bought DVDs” in a time when you can stream pretty much anything you’d want to watch.

And in one sense, they’re right. You can stream pretty much anything nowadays.

But in another sense, this argument is actually quite stupid, because streaming services can, without notice, remove ANYTHING from their platforms, rendering you unable to watch [insert favorite show] or [insert favorite movie] AT ANY TIME.

Like…are we all just blind to how ridiculous that is? We pay for, say, Netflix, but we don’t own anything on it. So if [insert show here] is the whole reason you’re using Netflix and they suddenly remove it, what was the point of giving Netflix all of that money? It’s like renting instead of buying.

Which I guess some people are cool with.

But if I have a piece of media that I really like, I’m going to make damn sure I have my own physical (or downloadable/saveable digital) copy of it so that no streaming service can take it away from me.

This happened with Hulu and Chicago Hope. Hulu was the ONLY PLACE you could watch Chicago Hope, so I used to watch it religiously. Then, one day, they just removed it.

It hasn’t been back since and you CANNOT find it anywhere else.

This happens constantly on Netflix, too. You get invested in a show/movie and then suddenly you can’t watch it anymore because you just paid for the streaming, not the item itself. You don’t own it. It’s not yours.

Isn’t that…frustrating?

That’s why I don’t use streaming services for my music. If there’s a song I like, I’m not leaving my ability to listen to said song whenever/wherever up to chance. I’m getting a physical (digital) copy OF MY OWN. Spotify can eat dicks; I want to own my songs, not my ability to stream what it makes available to me.

UGH.

Sorry, that Tumblr post just stated basically all my same opinions about streaming services that no one else seems to take issue with.

UGH AGAIN.