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I have been thinking about physical media.

Almost everything i have, that would be my "history" is stored somewhere online.

This includes music, photos, films, documents, contacts for friends, everything.

As long as i have an internet connection, the site still exists and i haven't had a subscription run out or somehow been deplatformed, then is all fine.

The problem then is what happens when i can't access all of my stuff.

The second problem is that i feel like i have nothing that i own. Many of these things online are in fact just rented.

I rent music, i rent subscriptions to software, i rent the space i store my files on in a cloud.

The suspicious part of me also thinks, what if someone decided just to withdraw that software? "Hey, we decided we don't like you, therefore we are cancelling your ability to use software x, thank you."

The third problem is what i pass down to future generations. My grandparents have boxes full of pictures, cd's, old videos and important written memories.

I used to think this was just a nusiance, having to keep all that stuff in boxes, isn't it better to store it all online?

Unfortunately, the answer might be no.

So, to tackle all of this, i have started to buy physical everything.

I switched from Photoshop to Affinity because i can buy the software outright.

I bought a camera that prints actual pictures (a Polaroid but it'll do for now).

My music collection is now on CD, even a few old tapes.

I've been buying books and printing important documents.

For people i need to keep in contact with, i make sure i have phone numbers, or even an address, not just emails and messenger names.

This all feels good.

If the internet fell over tomorrow, i can still survive :)