There is a difference between a file and a thing.
A file exists as potential — it is always ready to be played, copied, moved, deleted. It has no location. It takes up no space in any room you inhabit. You cannot hold it. When you stop paying for the service that hosts it, it is gone, or at least inaccessible, which amounts to the same thing.
A thing is different. A vinyl record, a CD, a book — these exist in space. They accumulate. They age. They can be damaged, lost, given away, inherited. They have a history that is also a physical history: the scratch from the time it slipped, the water stain on the sleeve, the name written inside the cover.
When you own a physical album, you own an artifact. Not just the music — the object that carries the music. And objects carry meaning in ways that files cannot. They are evidence that something happened. That someone made a thing, pressed it, packaged it, sent it into the world.
Tyranny & Capitalism exists as a file. It also exists as a vinyl record and a CD. The difference is not just sonic — it is ontological. The physical versions are artifacts of a moment: the debut, the first statement, the document. They will not be repressed indefinitely. At some point, the run ends, and what remains are the copies that found their way into the world.
Owning one is not nostalgia. It is a decision about what you want to keep.