The history of hominids making music goes back well more than 100K years; physical media has only existed for the last 147 of them. I think we're way too close to have any perspective as to whether physical media (containing recorded music) is a great ("permanent") advancement of our species or perhaps an anomalistic blip on the arc of human existence. I'd suggest one not get too attached to any form of physical media... it, too, will pass.
The end of physical media is neigh
Very sad news for me personally. Honestly this struck me as hard or harder than hearing about the death of a beloved artist. With the advent of machine learning and AI controlling our music listening we are becoming a world without any control at all over our music or movie culture.