‘If you can’t hold it, you don’t own it’: why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl
Some people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services. Photograph: Charday Penn/GettyView image in fullscreenSome people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services. For others, it is the sound of needle on vinyl, the click of a cassette player and the ability to interact with a physical format.We asked people if they were moving back to CDs, DVDs, vinyl and older formats to escape algorithmically curated content.
- ▪Some people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services.
- ▪Photograph: Charday Penn/GettyView image in fullscreenSome people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services.
- ▪For others, it is the sound of needle on vinyl, the click of a cassette player and the ability to interact with a physical format.We asked people if they were moving back to CDs, DVDs, vinyl and older formats to escape algorithmically curat
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — Tech |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/oct/02/physical-media-fans-streaming-algorithms-cds-dvds-vinyl |
| Publication time | Fri, 02 Oct 2026 08:00:14 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-02T08:15:45.066Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-02T08:15:45.066Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | emrb3PaDKkn_ · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Some people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services. Photograph: Charday Penn/GettyView image in fullscreenSome people have begun to buy secondhand CDs and DVDs from charity shops to wean themselves off subscription services. Photograph: Charday Penn/GettyMedia‘If you can’t hold it, you don’t own it’: why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinylPeople describe their return to physical media – whether to protect data, support artists, or retain control of one’s choices Jane ClintonFri 2 Oct 2026 04.00 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleFor some, it is the security of knowing they have a physical copy of their favourite films and music, free from algorithms, interruptions and the vagaries of streaming.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — Tech.
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