The History and Future of Digital Ownership
I'd like to get the community's feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we're really doing is purchasing a "license" to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.
Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn't the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?
P.S. I know there's pirating and all, but that's not the focus of my question.
And yet, somehow, GOG and Itch still exist, allowing you to download games completely DRM-free, as often as you like. If they ever go out of business, you can still use your local copies forever.
How do they do it? A mystery...
That takes a lot less bandwidth than streaming. All business have fixed costs. Blockbuster Video had to pay rent for physical stores, for example. Delivering via the net is relatively cheap compared to stores or physical postage. I'd be surprised if GOG's cost aren't much lower than anything physical.
Well then let me actually download the movie like it was a game, then! And how exactly does it take less bandwidth? It's still tens or hundreds of gigabytes to download every time someone wants to install a game, most people only use the offline installers as backups.
But how often do you install the same game? A streaming movie needs to be (partially) downloaded every time someone watches it. But yes, I shouldn't jump to the conclusion that this ends up being a higher bandwidth cost per dollar purchasing price.
When you keep a backup, then the download was basically just a way of delivering a physical copy. I answered why we can't have online property.
As to why many don't allow you to keep a private copy. For the obvious reason: To maintain control over their property and monetize it to the highest degree possible.