I made a mistake starting a digital library

I’ve had an Android for more than a decade now, and I’ve bought my fair share of digital items on the Google Play Store. This includes books, video games, and some TV shows and movies. For a long time, it wasn’t an issue as I always had something that could play what I bought. I always had it in the back of my mind that I was at the whim of a corporation taking my content away from me, since digital ownership isn’t the same as physical, but it was never anything that affected me. Maybe it’s because I was younger, but I’m well aware of the drawbacks now.

Apple TV 4K (2022)

Brand

Apple

Bluetooth codecs

5.0

Wi-Fi

6

Ethernet

Gigabit (128GB model only)

Storage and RAM

64GB, 128GB

What became an eye-opener is buying streaming devices like the Apple TV 4K and Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max. As it turns out, companies really like it if you buy into their ecosystem and theirs alone.I found this out the hard way when the Apple TV app finally launched on Android and didn’t bring any of the purchases I made on my Apple TV 4K along for the ride. The same thing applied to my Fire TV Stick 4K, which doesn’t support Google Play Store purchases.

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Digital libraries have a few great things going for them between not taking up any shelf space and being able to select what you want to watch from the comfort of your couch. I know there are many days when I’m feeling lazy and prefer finding something on Netflix instead of putting a disc in, but that’s where the benefits end for me.

It wasn’t as much of an issue in the early days, but as time has gone on and rights have been lost, it’s been turning into a problem. We’ve seen it play out in the video game world with games being delisted and disappearing forever. For digital libraries, you’re essentially at the whim of whether a corporation wants to continue giving you access to something. With a disc, you don’t have that issue. Laws have gone into place around the United States that force distributors to clarify that you’re paying for a digital license instead of actually owning something, so when the rug gets pulled out from under you, you won’t be surprised.

If you’re like me, you might’ve been lured in by cheap prices on digital storefronts, and it might’ve made you feel like it was safe to continue investing. The problem for me is I spread myself across many libraries. I have things on Amazon Prime, Google Play, some on Apple, and even a few things on my Xbox. This has made it difficult to keep track of where I bought things, and the problem grew even larger as I introduced streaming boxes into my household.

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Not everything is compatible

The biggest problem so far

I’ve been outspoken about my love for the Apple TV 4K. It’s far and away my favorite streaming box, but it can’t play anything I bought on the Google Play Store. To be fair, I expected that, and it’s something I thought about before buying it and decided that it would be okay. What I didn’t anticipate was my Fire TV Stick having the same issue. Amazon doesn’t exactly have the same type of ecosystem Google or Apple has, so I didn’t think my Google Play purchases would be incompatible. The Fire TV Stick doesn’t support Google Casting of any kind, so I can’t even cast something from my phone or tablet to the device, so I feel like it’s very limited in what it can do.

I didn’t have the same problem with my Roku Ultra, so there are still some devices that go above and beyond to make sure everything works. Strides are being made across the digital industry, and I look to Microsoft of all places as an example of what’s working. It’s nice to see many of my Xbox digital purchases carry over to PC and vice versa, so I’m not locked to a single platform. I know that’s largely an outlier because I can’t say the same about my PS5 purchases.

If you’ve been building up your library for several years now, it’s important to stick with the same platform every time, and that can become a problem in its own right. Xbox owners would find it difficult to jump ship over to PlayStation unless they’re fine with leaving all of their games behind. It’s becoming a bigger pill to swallow now, since a lot of games are backward-compatible and receive updates to make them run better on newer hardware. If you swap consoles, you have to buy the games again.

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I don’t like this feeling

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Using the Google Play Store as an example, it’s a prime example of how digital libraries can be rough. For a long time, I bought most of my digital movies and TV shows there since I have an Android tablet and phone, and I eventually picked up a Google Chromecast. Since everything was in the same ecosystem, there was nothing to worry about.

When I grabbed the Apple TV 4K and started buying a few things there, that’s when problems arose. It’s my only Apple device so far, but I’m sort of locked into buying more Apple products like an iPhone or iPad in the future, or I have to make sure I don’t build up a library on my Apple TV. It’s difficult to do since it’s my main streaming device, and it’s even weirder since that library doesn’t carry over to the recently released Apple TV app on Android. I figured I would get my digital library through that app, but that’s not the case. I don’t know what the reason for that is, but those thoughts are better for another day.

I’m not interested in picking up a Google Streamer, so luckily the Roku Ultra can continue playing things from my Google Play library. Not everybody is in the same boat, so it’s annoying that I have to pay attention to what’s compatible where. Roku, much like a Fire TV stick, doesn’t have a fully fleshed-out ecosystem like Apple or Android, so it’s odd to me to see compatibility problems like this.

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