Worth getting the scale right before anyone reaches for a torch: this is one reported customer, not a wave. A Reddit user says the Extended Edition trilogy they bought through the Play Store in 2022 vanished from their library, and the screenshots they shared show support confirming the title had been removed from the catalog, with no restore and no refund given how old the transaction was.
One case. But it is a clean illustration of what that Buy button actually sells you. Google's own terms describe it as a non-exclusive right to access, and say purchased content generally stays available only while Google retains the right to provide it. Rights lapse, the content goes, and the money you handed over four years ago is not part of the conversation.
I am not about to tell anyone to rebuild a wall of discs. Streaming is convenient and most people are never going back. But my shelf copy does not care whether two companies renewed a licensing agreement. Nobody can reach into it. And on the performance side a 4K disc still carries higher video bitrates and lossless audio than any stream I have put next to it, which is the part people here already know.
Discs scratch, players die, and a few thousand titles take up a room instead of an app icon. Fine. The trade is that access does not depend on someone else's server continuing to recognise a license years later.
Has anyone here actually lost something they bought? Not a rental expiring, not a service shutting down with notice, but a purchase quietly disappearing out of a library.
One case. But it is a clean illustration of what that Buy button actually sells you. Google's own terms describe it as a non-exclusive right to access, and say purchased content generally stays available only while Google retains the right to provide it. Rights lapse, the content goes, and the money you handed over four years ago is not part of the conversation.
I am not about to tell anyone to rebuild a wall of discs. Streaming is convenient and most people are never going back. But my shelf copy does not care whether two companies renewed a licensing agreement. Nobody can reach into it. And on the performance side a 4K disc still carries higher video bitrates and lossless audio than any stream I have put next to it, which is the part people here already know.
Discs scratch, players die, and a few thousand titles take up a room instead of an app icon. Fine. The trade is that access does not depend on someone else's server continuing to recognise a license years later.
Has anyone here actually lost something they bought? Not a rental expiring, not a service shutting down with notice, but a purchase quietly disappearing out of a library.
