Mark Tyson Social Links Navigation News Editor Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
ezst036 Admin said: ………sees strong resurgence amid physical media backlash………… https://i.imgflip.com/83im0l.png Um. Let's not act like (some) customers don't prefer the convenience of completely digital solutions. The "backlash" (incorrect terminology) would be one set of customers revolting against another set of consumers. There's a whole evolution of consumers we could recount moving from 56k, to broadband, here comes napster, here comes ipods until it results in the death of Blockbuster and eventually almost the medium itself. Reaching the logical end of its conclusion. This is a customer vs customer war. Honestly I think the customers who get bitter and they cling to their CDs and their vinyl, with antipathy toward digital solutions, are the ones who are correct here. The providers be it the Spotifys of the world or the Sonys and Microsofts of the world, those middlemen. The middlemen cannot be trusted. Reply
expired56k I think you are missing the point, people who actually enjoy music are fed up with all the licensing nonsense, decreasing quality, and many other things. Now AI is the final straw. Due to these similar issues, I also felt like I was not enjoying music like I used to. I have been going back to physical for a few years now and couldn't be happier (though to be honest, I never full left, I kept all my physical media in storage; also been buying UHD movies for many years now – same reasons). Reply
IAcidBurnI ezst036 said: https://i.imgflip.com/83im0l.png Um. Let's not act like (some) customers don't prefer the convenience of completely digital solutions. The "backlash" (incorrect terminology) would be one set of customers revolting against another set of consumers. There's a whole evolution of consumers we could recount moving from 56k, to broadband, here comes napster, here comes ipods until it results in the death of Blockbuster and eventually almost the medium itself. Reaching the logical end of its conclusion. This is a customer vs customer war. Honestly I think the customers who get bitter and they cling to their CDs and their vinyl, with antipathy toward digital solutions, are the ones who are correct here. The providers be it the Spotifys of the world or the Sonys and Microsofts of the world, those middlemen. The middlemen cannot be trusted. I don't comment here as you can obviously see but I had to for you. I can't comprehend how you can miss your mark so bad. What's this has to do with different generation of customers? This just has to do with owning your stuff. I doubt anyone likes buying but actually just renting. Reply
TerryLaze IAcidBurnI said: This just has to do with owning your stuff. I doubt anyone likes buying but actually just renting. This ship has sailed decades ago… From the moment that a game needs to connect to a server, even just once per new install, you stop being the owner of that game and are at the mercy of the company to keep up the support for that game, you have a "rented" (limited time) game even if you have a physical copy. Same for consoles that can get updates, that can make older games stop running on your console. We are like the slow boiling frog ,now that we exploded from being cooked we finally want to do something about it. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/streaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/streaming/sales-of-cd-and-vinyl-music-sees-strong-resurgence-amid-physical-media-backlash-us-sales-of-retro-media-were-up-59-percent-and-18-percent-respectively-in-h1-2026#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Why Scaling AI Compute Performance Requires a New Power Architecture
- Xbox Game Pass imposes monthly cloud gaming limits, just 15 hours per month for Ultimate — subscribers and non-subscribers can buy more hours to keep gaming
- One-slot, low-profile Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB with two monitor outputs breaks cover at Newegg for $496 — bus-powered model looking for a use case in local LLM wor
- This price-hike-busting RTX 5080 gaming PC is cheaper than it was in April — save $500 on a 9800X3D beast with 32GB of DDR5, 2TB SSD
- TSMC to start using High-NA EUV lithography in 2030 — A10 or A11 technology prime candidates for use
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.