The way you watch movies and listen to music on streaming services might be ruining the whole experience without you even realizing it.

You probably know the feeling — you're in the mood to watch a movie, so you open up Netflix. The next thing you know, two hours have passed, and you still haven't decided what to watch. Even when I go on a streaming platform, knowing what I'm looking for, it's easy to get distracted by a homepage flooded with endless recommendations. Eventually, it starts to feel overwhelming and all that content just blurs together into one giant, forgettable backlog.

That's why I've started buying CDs and DVDs again. I recently revived some old PC setups, so I thought it was time to try taking a similar trip back in time with my music and movies. What started as a passing interest in physical media ended up highlighting everything I'm missing out on with streaming.

I used to think the convenience and variety of streaming made it the holy grail for accessing all my favorite shows, movies, and music. I haven't canceled all my subscriptions yet, but I've become far more reluctant to launch Disney+ instead of turning on my Blu-ray player — and for more than one reason.

The highs and lows of returning to physical media in 2025

Physical media is inconvenient, but maybe that's a good thing

Switching back to physical media in 2025 was both harder and easier than I expected, but even the inconveniences had their upsides.

Finding a good DVD player and portable CD player was surprisingly easy. I already had a decent Sony Blu-Ray player that can also play DVDs, although I hadn’t used it much until recently. For my CDs, I went with a Klim Nomad portable CD player from Amazon.

Finding the DVDs and CDs I wanted was much more challenging. For the first time in my life, I found myself driving over to used bookstores to sift through shelves of old CDs and DVDs. I went to my favorite bands' websites to find CDs to mail order. When I got really desperate, I even bought a few things off Amazon.

Along the way, I also stumbled on discs I hadn't even been looking for but bought anyway, like a favorite album or an old movie I'd forgotten about. Those moments of surprise and the satisfaction of snagging hard-to-find albums or DVDs really made up for the inconvenience of having to go hunt for them. If anything, that effort gave each disc a little extra value and made it feel even more rewarding, finally getting to pop the disc in my CD or DVD player.

Life without streaming revived my love for music

Rediscovering music without smart shuffle or playlists

The way I listen to music on Spotify is distracted, eclectic, and disorganized. It revolves around playlists and rarely includes listening to albums as a whole, or at least it used to.

When I started listening to music on CDs, I began to realize that there's often a whole narrative to the way the tracks are arranged, adding more depth to the music that you could easily miss out on if you're only listening to individual songs on streaming.

I noticed this most with "Strange Trails" by Lord Huron, which I've discovered is notoriously hard to track down on CD. This album paints a haunting, vivid tale that could be dissected like a book. Every individual song is phenomenal, but it's not until you take the time to pay attention and listen to the full album that you get a complete picture of that story.

Realizing that has led me to be more intentional about how I listen to all of my music, which listening to on CD really helps with. You lose the convenience of streaming, but you also get rid of all the distractions, too, like that pesky urge to jump between tracks. When I listened to Khalid's "Free Spirit" album on CD, it was like hearing it for the first time, partly because I had never slowed down and taken the time to listen to the whole thing in order.

Listening to CDs again reminded me that music is art, not just something you leave on in the background or vaguely listen to in the car. That might sound obvious, but streaming was making it too easy to shuffle mindlessly through my music like it's a TikTok feed, rather than an intentional collection.

Collecting and owning the movies and shows I love

No ads, no streaming purges, no distractions

Numerous times now, shows and movies I love have been "purged" from streaming services, often in a way that makes them impossible to watch. Willow from Disney+ is a perfect example. It's not a flawless show, but it's a fun watch that really shines in a few ways. Or at least, it used to be. It was completely removed from Disney+ in 2023, just a few months after it launched, and you can't (legally) watch it anywhere anymore. I would have happily paid for a copy of it on DVD or Blu-ray, but that's not an option, either.

Situations like this have made me lose trust in streaming services, which was what initially pushed me to start buying shows and movies again whenever possible. Like with music, this has had surprising benefits that have really improved my viewing experience and appreciation for the media I love.

For instance, earlier this year, I pre-ordered a special edition of season one of Arcane on DVD. I wanted to have a physical copy of it, but the special edition is fantastic in its own right, with a unique design inside and outside that makes the whole thing worth displaying.

Blu-rays and 4K UHD discs are pricey, but DVDs can be incredibly cheap. For instance, I bought Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves for just $5, which is pretty much what you would pay for a digital rental that only lasts a couple of days.

Ironically, DVDs and Blu-rays can also be much more convenient than streaming these days. I never have to worry about which streaming service a favorite movie is on or whether I'll get interrupted by annoying ads on a service I'm already paying for. I just pop in my DVD and hit play — no distractions, no digging through streaming platforms, no worrying about streaming purges.

Should you switch back to physical media, too?

Physical media is great, but not for everyone

There are all kinds of reasons people are migrating back to physical media these days, but for me, it came down to two things: intentionality and ownership.

I used to love the convenience and variety of streaming, but I've become disillusioned with it. Not only has it gotten expensive, but ads and streaming purges add extra stress and frustration. While I haven't had any problems with Spotify, it has been subtly transforming the way I listen to music in ways that I didn't realize were actually taking away from the experience of music.

So, for me, switching back to physical media was a rewarding and eye-opening experience. It's not for everyone, though. You need space to store a collection of discs and the money to get devices to play them. You also have to be willing to deal with inconveniences like less portability or scouring the internet to find the disc you want.

If you're willing to give it a try, though, returning to physical media can be surprisingly rewarding, with the satisfaction of building an intentional collection and knowing no streaming service can take it away or distract you at every turn.