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Comment by goatinaboat | Hacker News Reader

I have hundreds of books I take with me everywhere now

This is an underexplored cultural shift I think. In the past your books and your music on LP or CD and your movies on DVD or VHS were part of the decor, usually on prominent display in the living room, the room of the house where guests were entertained. Even your games carts for your console would be in that display. Seeing what was in your host's collection was a part of getting to know them better, and of course, they might choose to curate their collection knowing it would be perused by visitors. That doesn't happen so much any more, for some people, it has never been a part of their experience. I wonder what has replaced it.

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What I find troubling is that we don’t own our goods in the digital space. When you “buy” a kindle book, you don’t own that book, you own a license to read that cannot be transferred or inherited. That means that parents no longer can pass on cultural artifacts to their children and grandchildren. This cannot be a healthy evolution for humanity.

There are two types of people, broadly speaking: the ones that keep nothing always throw everything away and format their computers once a year, and the ones that hoard everything like an archive.

Although I am proudly the second type, I understand that many people are the first type. They don't really care that much about this stuff that to me feels fundamental, so they have no issue with things not really being theirs.

And in a way, they are right. While year after year I'm burdened by being the archivist of my own possessions, there are many people that just live unencumbered by such things.

The thing with owning books is that your family eventually finds your way to them if you own any. My family found my old books recently when looking for something to read - I saw it on their desks. Had to tell them "Yea, that's good, throw that one away, I wasted my time on it, don't waste yours." So that's an argument for keeping stuff, but extremely filtered.

Kind of like code, I guess.

"The things you own end up owning you."

This. Having done 4 intercontinental moves, some on tight budgets, I have donated/dumped boxes of books and now mostly read on my e-book to avoid repeating that. The only downside I have seen to this is the "display case" which is such a great way to find out when you share fringe interests with visitors.

One technical solution I have given a lot of thought is to achieve a tangible representation of books, music and photo albums as small printed cards. These cards should then be recognizable by your media devices (e-readers, audio-players,...) via QR codes or RFID tags. Think putting on a playlist by dumping a bunch of music cards on your player, etc.

I find keeping a library, while a pain in the ass to move, keeps the books and their contents more fresh in my mind. Sometimes I browse the shelves and get reminded of interesting ideas or just feel compelled to pick something up again. I don't get the same from scrolling through my Kindle library for some reason.

There are of course the ways to share your digital collection. Your games list on Steam, books on Goodreads, music on services like Spotify and last.fm. On the one hand it's less immediately visible but on the other people can see it without visiting your home. As for what has replaced it in the home, no idea.

Blank white spaces. And art.

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