DTC375 - Journey Entry Week 3

 Are our storytelling media now a luxury item?

In the modern day storytelling media has become very widespread and mainstream, from new movies being released seemingly every week, to streaming platforms announcing big titles or adaptations which are exclusive to their own subscriptions all the time. However, one thing all modern storytelling media and mediums have in common, is a price. Movie tickets cost money, Netflix subscription costs money and even books have a price tag on them. But when someone thinks of a “Luxury Item”, they don’t usually think about movies or books, so to answer the question let’s look at the definition of what a luxury item is.

From a quick google search, the first website that appears is https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/luxury-item.asp, where they define a luxury item as “A luxury item is not necessary to live, but deemed highly desirable within a culture and society”. It also goes on to say that the consumption or purchase of luxury items will scale with a person’s wealth, meaning the more money one person has the more of the luxury item will be bought or consumed. Now think about this, movies and the shows that are beloved by many aren’t required to survive, they’re there to provide entertainment and that isn’t a basic necessity. Furthermore, if you had more disposable income, and you were interested in the various movies or streaming service exclusive titles, would you spend your money on them? Would you spend even more money to get the better seats at the cinemas or pay for ad free premium services on streaming websites? In this sense, our modern storytelling media can be considered “luxury items” as it matches up with the definitions.

Now this wasn’t always the case, in a sense. Sure movies and books still cost money, but libraries carry many books and stories one can desire, and some even allow you to rent out books and games from them. But as the rise of subscription based streaming services came along, so did “exclusives” - certain shows or movies that have a contract stating that it may only be shown on certain specific platforms. Then later down the line some movies became cinema only exclusives to try to drive people back into watching movies in theaters. This causes people who want to consume more to have to pay more for multiple subscriptions and more trips to the cinemas, so you can say in a way modern storytelling became a luxury item over time as the cost of consuming stories increased. And some might think that this encourages big companies to produce more, and it does. But with the oversaturation of shows these days, a lot of them tend to drop in quality, but since your still paying for the full ticket, subscription or even price for a video game, the only ones who benefit off this “subscription and platform exclusive” format are the ones in the companies, not the consumers of the media. 

To end off this entry, I would like to propose a counter argument. As I mentioned before, Libraries and books, movies and games you can rent out for free as long as you return them in a timely manner and don’t damage the product. So besides the exclusive shows and such, people should be able to obtain and enjoy the various stories they want for free right? Well this is where I would like to share my opinion that the stories themselves aren’t the ones being classified as a luxury item, the convenience is. Modern day people don’t want to wait for their local library to finally have the DVD of the new highly anticipated movie, games or for them to stock in the books. People want to be able to just download it and play or watch the media on their own time without having to think about the return date or potentially scratching the disk or spilling on the books. As such, since the consumption of these stories aren’t tied to one’s disposable income, are they really considered luxury items? Because at the end of the day, we’re paying for the convenience, not the stories themselves.