Does the average person know that a physical book they bought can deteriorate with age, and pages can tear or fall out as well? But as long as they have that book in their possession, it belongs to them, and they can read it, lend it to someone else, to their heart’s content. How are discs any different? Surely a physical book is not “permanent” but it certainly has its own merit, as compared to a DRM ridden copy of a book from Amazon. Also, some people just enjoy collecting physical media.

Books are an interesting analogy: We do have books and scrolls that are hundreds of years old. And technically, those books did "deteriorate": The colors faded, pages were damaged or went missing, the whole book became much more sensitive to environmental conditions - and the scripts and languages they were written in became outdated or even lost.

And yet we can restore and preserve those books today, and experts can still read them. And occasionally, even a language that was lost completely is recovered - or a scroll that was burned in the eruption of Vesuvius: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-have-de...

Furthermore, a physical book (or disc) can't just be "taken away".

The problem is most people don’t realize how short disc media’s lifespan is.

Books it’s very obvious when it’s deteriorating or molding, hard drives and such are not to a laymen.