In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to the death of physical p

[Speedygi]

Do you think as we have our books/games/music etc on the cloud and in digital stores, there will be a downfall of physical brick and mortar stores in the long run?

Discuss...

 

[taz323]

Think it has had some impact on it, but I have will continue to support local business. I prefer walking into a store and buying a product then the internet any day.

 

[kataran]

Being lazy as I am I'm leaning towards buying on-line a lot more lately

But I don't believe the stores will be affected any time soon

 

[Highrisedrifter]

It depends on what I am buying as to where i will go to get it.

If I am buying clothes, electronics or food, I would rather go into a store and browse in person.

If I am buying books, DVDs, games or things like that then I will often buy them online.

However, i will buy physical copies of everything. I dislike buying digital things that are 'stored in the cloud' as I personally dislike cloud computing.

I don't own a Kindle or even the Kindle app and our library at home has probably nearly 2000 books in it. I will buy a physical CD or DVD and rip it myself to my preferred format to play on my home entertainment system. I will buy a physical copy of a computer game if i can (Steam notwithstanding) and install it manually.

Why? Well, if anything goes wrong on my computer, I still have the physical copy to install from or rip from again. I've learnt the hard way before.

 

[SprSynJn]

In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to ...

I am an expat who prefers to buy American copies of games, books and the lot, so digital is where I foresee my money going in the future. Music, on the other hand, I will continue to lean towards physical copies as I can rent a CD here for a fraction of the cost on iTunes.

 

[Speedygi]

I like how I have the option to buy both at any given time...but if the digital business is going to pull sales of the physical brick and mortar stores down I would rather see digital go away than the stores, because simply these stores and their managers and employees have their livelihoods to worry about, and it would be rough to see the decline of these stores heading to a fever pitch.

I don't want to have to tell my children one day that we once sold music in physical stores. That is a future I do not want to see.

 

[rayz336]

In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to ...

I think there will be a decline in physical stores but due to data constraints I doubt we will see a complete downfall of physical stores

 

[rellyrellz]

Re: In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to ...

I prefer the physical . I still buy music CDs and Blu Ray DVDs from stores 9 times out of 10.

 

[iOS Gravity]

Physical copies make me feel more comfortable, but it depends on what I am planning to buy.

 

[zerog46]

In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to ...

I also prefer to buy from a store. For music and movies I prefer iTunes. It takes up less physical space and its always there to view. As far as books with my current lifestyle and work right now I prefer to listen to them due to always working two jobs. But my kids love to go to book stores as do I and just relax and hang out for a few hours. It really makes me feel good to know they enjoy books like they do.

 

[Speedygi]

Re: In today's digital landscape, do you think digital distribution will lead to ...

I also prefer to buy from a store. For music and movies I prefer iTunes. It takes up less physical space and its always there to view. As far as books with my current lifestyle and work right now I prefer to listen to them due to always working two jobs. But my kids love to go to book stores as do I and just relax and hang out for a few hours. It really makes me feel good to know they enjoy books like they do.

It feels good to have an actual product to hold sometimes, doesn't it?