alt Hacker NewsAbout 15 years ago I got rid of almost all of my physical media. I was moving a lot at the time (I've moved 13 times over the last 20 years, several times to different cities) and I had hundreds of CDs, DVDs and books.. It was literally a quarter of my boxes every time I moved..
So I sold and donated all of it, kept what had special value, and re-acquired a lot of it digitally.
I still think I made the right decision, although every now and then I miss something specific and regret it, but I get over it pretty fast.
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I also moved many times in the past. Once CD-quality settled, I gifted my vinyls to a thrift store. (The 'art' was immaterial.)
20 years ago, I ripped all of my CDs into 192K MP3s (perfect enough for my ears) using an online metadata service. Getting rid of the 'jewel cases' (and eventually all of their non-CD content) but retaining the CDs (4 Logic cases worth, 3 sq. feet) saved a ton of room.
For backup I archived the thousands of MP3s onto an 80GB Seagate which I organized by genre, then stored in a shoebox. 12 years later I copied the Seagate to two more HDs. It worked fine (but gave-up-the-ghost later that year).
I've relied on those files since. Unlike several dead self-burned CD-Rs, the manu'd CDs (I never use) seem to have remained healthy in the cases at room temp.
Moving that many times is enough to make a person give up interest in all physical possessions, not just media.
I did the same as you about 20 years ago. And about three years ago, I started reinvesting in physical ownership again for my music and movies. For me this started from a desire to reduce my reliance on major tech companies, especially licensed content like media. But since moving in that direction, I've found it very rewarding to curate a collection reflective of my evolving taste, and find I treat my time with a spinning record or blu-ray I had to insert with more focus and attention.
I don't share the anecdote to suggest in any way that you or anyone else would feel the same.