Lifetime - Media Too

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on

Lifetime Isn’t Just An Airline Problem– March 2025

Last week I published a blog about Lifetime status on Airlines. A bunch of you wrote to me agreeing with how deceptive the lifetime claim is, and some of you pointed out that the lack of truth about “lifetime” isn’t just a travel industry problem.

There’s a scene in the original Men in Black where Agent J marvels at some interstellar tech, and Agent K tells him about a new form of media that’ll make him buy The White Album all over again. It’s a funny moment, but also a grimly accurate depiction of the endless cycle of repurchasing media.

For those of us who have lived through multiple format changes, this is a frustrating reality. I have an amazing record collection buried in my basement that’s been untouched for so many decades that vinyl has actually come back in style. I remember when CDs arrived, promising pristine audio quality and durability – which actually did force me to buy The White Album once again. Then came MiniDiscs, which I was briefly enamored with – until that format evaporated before most people even knew it existed. I still have a couple of MiniDisc players collecting dust in my basement – next to my obsolete CD players.

Now, all of my music lives on a home server. There’s ZERO chance I’m paying for a subscription service just to stream what I already own. Yet, that’s exactly the direction companies keep pushing us toward – forcing us to re-purchase, re-access, or re-subscribe to content we’ve already paid for.

Video Too

The same story applies to video. I have shelves and shelves of VHS tapes that I’m too afraid to test, assuming they’re already unplayable. Then there are DVDs, which we were told would last forever – except, surprise! Many of them are now succumbing to DVD rot. The issue, recently highlighted by this website, reveals that a disturbing number of Warner Bros. DVDs are failing, leaving collectors with unplayable discs despite taking perfect care of them.

We were sold on the idea that DVDs were the perfect archival format, better than VHS in every way. Yet here we are, with aging discs that are just as unreliable as tapes left in a damp basement. The shift to digital streaming was supposed to solve all of this, but instead, it introduced new problems – namely, that we no longer own what we buy. DVRs initially felt like a win, allowing us to time-shift TV the way VHS once did, but then a closer look revealed it was actually cable companies taking control. We never really owned those digital recordings; they were stored on company servers, subject to deletion or restrictions at their whim. If you can’t send me something you recorded, do you really have the recording?

Of course, there are digital solutions for maintaining your own media library, but they’re far from easy to explain. And as media companies push us toward streaming, the concept of ownership is eroding. Once, you could walk into a store, buy a VHS tape or DVD, and have a tangible copy of a movie you could play indefinitely. Now, movies and shows can disappear from streaming libraries overnight, leaving consumers scrambling to find (and often re-purchase) their favorite content elsewhere – and we’re beginning to see that “indefinitely” didn’t mean forever.

The Recurring Payment Model

The pattern is painfully clear: companies want us to keep paying for the same content over and over again. And despite all that fact, artists don’t seem to be making more money. Musicians see pennies (if anything at all) from streaming, and actors are fighting for fair residuals as platforms yank shows from their catalogs without warning.

Meanwhile, consumers are stuck in a loop. We buy media, it degrades or becomes obsolete, and then we pay again – whether through new formats, streaming subscriptions, or digital purchases that offer no guarantee of permanence.

First-world problems? Sure. But also a reminder that nothing we buy is ever truly ours – and we live in a world that needs to stop throwing around the word “lifetime” lest it eventually have no meaning at all.

This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or disagree. Hearing from the traveling community is always a highlight for me. Thanks!