From PFS Blog: Fhoer: The Death of Physical Media: The Digital Panopticon and the Attack on Property
From @Fhoer_here, “The Death of Physical Media,” Fhoer’s Substack (July 16, 2026): “The Digital Panopticon and the Attack on Property.” According to the author: The end of physical media can be blamed on IP laws…
The planned obsolescence of physical media and the forced migration to cloud storage are often celebrated as the pinnacle of modern logistical convenience. The illusion of a frictionless world is sold, where entire libraries and collections fit in the palm of your hand. However, behind this supposed logistical utopia, a profound reconfiguration of property rights is at work. The disappearance of the physical format is not merely a technological advancement, but a structural maneuver designed to make it difficult for individuals to maintain their own collections, separate from the network and beyond the reach of state-corporate scrutiny and control.
To understand the gravity of this movement, it is imperative to observe the problem through the lens of intellectual property criticism. In a natural order, the concept of property applies exclusively to scarce goods, that is, physical resources over which conflicts may arise, such as a piece of land, a printed book, or a hard drive. Information, in turn, is not scarce; thus, the act of copying a file does not deprive the original author of its ownership.
