Most modern users are digital tenants. We pay monthly rent (subscriptions) for the right to access our own data. We used to own our own movies with physical copies, or games that we used to buy, had it in a box with the DVDs and even some interesting accessories like guides, map, art book etc. We also used to buy CDs of the music we often listened to. We owned it. But now, the game that you buy in a digital store, or the movie you previously bought in a digital platform could simply be taken away from you. When a service like Google Play Music or a specific streaming license expires, the media you 'bought' simply vanishes.
The shift from Perpetual Licenses (buying a CD/DVD/Software) to Service Access (Spotify/Netflix/SaaS) has fundamentally changed our relationship with culture. When we buy a movie on a digital platform, or a game on digital storefronts, we aren't buying the file, what we are buying is a temporary license to stream it until that platform loses the distribution rights or goes out of business. Prime example of this was Wii U or PlayStation stores shutdown, effectively deleting thousands of games from history. If you didn't have a physical copy or a local backup, that art is gone forever.
Digital media is paradoxically both 'permanent' (it can be copied perfectly) and 'fragile' (it can be deleted instantly). Most URLs we know no longer work, like how half of the links cited by the US Supreme Court are gone. Our collective knowledge on the internet is built on sand. Platforms like MySpace or old forum boards have lost decades of user-generated content due to server migrations or neglect, all the media shared there, the knowledge, history, everything is gone. Without active preservation, our personal and collective histories are being erased. Because we no longer have physical backups, a single Terms of Service (ToS) violation or a hacked account can result in a total loss of a lifetime's worth of music, photos, and documents.
In 2026, self-hosting is no longer just a hobby; it is a preservation strategy. The entirety of Wikipedia, for a long time, can be downloaded and stored locally using Kiwix, whole 90GB of it, possibly more if you include all the images and videos. If you now have a copy of the music or movies that you own, using free tools like Navidrome or Jellyfin, you can host it locally on your home computer, no more subscription fees to listen to what you've already owned. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) ensures that the tools we use to access our media won't suddenly implement DRM (Digital Rights Management) that locks us out of our own files, as people like you and me can contribute and curate the source code.
When we have no internet, the streaming services no longer work for us. While some platforms allow you to download their contents and can be accessed locally later on, it can still be taken away from us, as it's stored in a format that can't be extracted in a traditional way. If the apocalypse happened, my favorite music, movies, and games will be inaccessible forever (I know, listening to your favorite song will be the least of your concern during the apocalypse).
Digital preservation is not just about saving files; it is about protecting our right to remember. In a world of 'software-as-a-service,' owning your data is a form of digital independence.