And that is why I still have a "player" for all those different kinds of content... especially a "direct drive" turntable. I don't have much in the way of "classic cassette" or "8-Track" original content (my father had a lot of 8-track), but I have a decent bit of vinyl, including some MFSL Original Master Recordings. I even had an original "PlayTape" Mini cassette player (although it didn't look like this)
These days, I have a shit-ton of Audio CDs and DVDs (and now Blu-Ray). I guard those religiously.. And I maintain players for each form of content. I even have one of the original Sony "Discman®" mini players. And, believe it or not, I still have an old Sony "Betamax®" VCR as well as VHS players.
I had made the decision long ago that buying content in those forms is how I'd preserve my ownership of it "in perpetuity." I never did subscriptions or "streaming services" or beyond that, as I knew they'd try to enforce DRM and the content might "disappear" at some point. And I was proven correct several times. Consider the Discovery TV series "Sons of Guns." A fantastic show about guns, if it weren't for the a$$hole that starred in the thing and owned the shop. The moment Will Hayden got "busted" for those sex crimes, they yeeted that show off their streaming servers, pronto! If I had paid to subscribe to that show on those servers (which I hadn't BTW), I'd have been SOL! Similarly, for those who subscribed to it (I DID NOT!!!!

), the "Honey Boo Boo" series. They yanked that series quickly, once it was determined that "Momma June" was sleeping with a child molester, or whatever.
By purchasing the "hard copy" DVD or Blu-Ray, that could never be taken away. It's also why I never went in for whatever that "purple" digital streaming thing was that came along with DVDs because I knew it was all about DRM. I had to be able to download a physical digital copy in order to preserve it. If I couldn't, I wasn't going to buy/download it. Now, if I find something I like that's "digital," I may download it (via purchase if I can), but I'll also try to find the hard copy CD/DVD or whatever, in order to have it as a "back up." They can't ever say, "I didn't buy the content."
I'm no "Napster."
