25-Sep-2016, 03:45
Our generation is the last generation that will bother with physical media to store music. The new generation will essentially only stream music. Bits come in over the web, make music, and disappear. No LP boxes, no CD boxes, no tapes, no laser discs, none of that baggage.
I recently subscribed to TIDAL Hifi, which streams CD quality uncompressed sound. It's quite impressive, far better than crappy Internet radio stations with their insufferable MP3 offerings, which suck the life out of music. TIDAL HiFi sounds like I'm playing back one of my CDs. With Roon as the music organizer, TIDAL albums and my own ripped music are all intermingled. This is the first step towards a complete abandonment of physical media. Once I've ripped all the vinyl I care to listen to, and all the CDs I want to listen to at home, the rest can be donated to a local library or auctioned off.
Eventually, books will fall in the same category. I already have a few thousand academic papers and books on my iPad Pro. Who wants physical book any more?. I don't. A pain to carry them around, and a pain to store them or find them. Far better to have them digitally on my iPad or easily accessible through the cloud. At some point, Amazon or someone else will have a library of millions of books, all accessible through a membership (like TIDAL does), and no one will need to ever buy a book again.
OK, with no need to store books, or music, what are we going to do with all this extra space in our homes?
I recently subscribed to TIDAL Hifi, which streams CD quality uncompressed sound. It's quite impressive, far better than crappy Internet radio stations with their insufferable MP3 offerings, which suck the life out of music. TIDAL HiFi sounds like I'm playing back one of my CDs. With Roon as the music organizer, TIDAL albums and my own ripped music are all intermingled. This is the first step towards a complete abandonment of physical media. Once I've ripped all the vinyl I care to listen to, and all the CDs I want to listen to at home, the rest can be donated to a local library or auctioned off.
Eventually, books will fall in the same category. I already have a few thousand academic papers and books on my iPad Pro. Who wants physical book any more?. I don't. A pain to carry them around, and a pain to store them or find them. Far better to have them digitally on my iPad or easily accessible through the cloud. At some point, Amazon or someone else will have a library of millions of books, all accessible through a membership (like TIDAL does), and no one will need to ever buy a book again.
OK, with no need to store books, or music, what are we going to do with all this extra space in our homes?
