> In the days before the Internet, we had limited space in bookshops, limited TV channels, etc. If you wanted to buy an audiotape, you could buy only what a nearby music shop offered. In those days, you got what was new, whether you liked it or not.
My copy of "Greatest Hits of 1720", purchased in a nearby music shop before there was a commercial Internet, disagrees.
That limited space for physical goods in local stores didn't mean we only got new stuff. The record shops had an oldies section (not new but only a generation or two old music) and a classical section (for much older music). Older books and movies were similarly available at bookstores and video stores.
The way they dealt with limited space was by only stocking the best of the older stuff. You could not go into a music store and find the symphonies of whoever was the 50th best symphony composer from the time of Beethoven. You would just find Beethoven and Haydn and Schubert and some others.
Compare to the new section, where you would find everything from the best to the run of the mill.
I don’t know.. when I was a kid in the 80s/90s the local video store was most definitely not stocked with criterion collection level titles. Things definitely got better in the 2000s when DVD hit its stride. Special Editon DVDs were a great excuse to rerelease a ton of great stuff which would have otherwise been forgotten.
I feel like we have regressed a bit now. One of my biggest issues with Netflix is that they don’t expire more classic or foreign cinema.
My copy of "Greatest Hits of 1720", purchased in a nearby music shop before there was a commercial Internet, disagrees.
That limited space for physical goods in local stores didn't mean we only got new stuff. The record shops had an oldies section (not new but only a generation or two old music) and a classical section (for much older music). Older books and movies were similarly available at bookstores and video stores.
The way they dealt with limited space was by only stocking the best of the older stuff. You could not go into a music store and find the symphonies of whoever was the 50th best symphony composer from the time of Beethoven. You would just find Beethoven and Haydn and Schubert and some others.
Compare to the new section, where you would find everything from the best to the run of the mill.