The thing is... having an account to access things is not the same thing as ownership. The companies that own these media libraries know this and a lot of them prefer it this way. They let you have everything, but own nothing.
You can leave your passwords to someone, but digital media is ephemeral. No one has a responsibility to preserve that stuff for you. Once the servers go down, if no one has saved a copy, it's gone.
Maybe this feels minor, but I think it will have pretty large repercussions eventually. All media is a form of personal or cultural history, and I think people should do their best to preserve it.
I lost an external hard drive last year with files on it that I had been storing up since high school. It was such a big blow to me because on it are videos and pictures and music that I would never be able to experience again. I used to archive everything on CDs, but I don't have that to fall back on anymore because I stopped after a while. Most computers don't even come with disc drives anymore. Things like CDs and DVDs have really become niche items because it's more convenient to subscribe to media libraries owned by people who don't actually care about the things they own than it is to actually own one thing you like. We're willingly losing our ability to preserve our own media because people have just accepted not really owning things anymore.
This is a thing that's really been driving me nuts lately because I've been trying to replenish a lot of the music I lost when my hard drive crashed, and I kind of can't. A lot of the music I'd downloaded years ago is not available online anymore. I listen to a lot of J-rock and most of that stuff can't be bought here. Because it's old, I would have to shell out a ridiculous amount of money for out of print CDs that have to be imported. There are so few companies that sell DRM-free audio files anymore, and basically none of the ones I have access to sell the music I'm looking for, probably largely due to international copyright funny business and also reluctance on the part of artists to just give people a thing that can be so easily copied and traded. And, like, I get it. The music industry has had this problem basically since we've had the ability to record music. They're extremely wary of just giving things to people because they know what will happen. But I am also in the camp that piracy isn't actually that big of a problem. You shouldn't sell other people's work for your own gain, but letting people experience something costly for free can only either end in: 0 additional sales OR actual additional sales. But alas this is besides the point and a discussion for another time.
Honestly, as someone who grew up in the Y2K era of computing and the internet and who has gone to art school and somewhat learned about archiving your work, there's a lot to be said about digital media preservation. Like, nothing lasts forever, but digital media--though it's more high-fidelity and more stable now than it used to be--is still usually lower fidelity than analog archival processes and has a shorter shelf life than other forms of storage.
I have a photo album with pictures of family members from nearly 90 years ago. There are slides in museums that contain beautiful reproductions of works that don't exist anymore. I own one of the nicest printings I've seen of a 80 year old book of cartoons that should really get a reprint because it's fantastic and I'm afraid to look at it too often because I don't want it to fall apart. You can store thousands of pictures on a hard drive half the size of a book, but will you still be able to look at them in 30 years?
I think there is something to be said for doing your own work to preserve things that you cherish. Buy DRM-free games if you can. Print out photos you like. Burn your favorite music to CDs. Buy a print version of your favorite ebook. If not for future people, then just for yourself.
The only way you can hold on to the things you like is if you actually own them.
Maybe I'm just old though...
Okay but one more thing though. So when I was in high school, I bought the original cast recording of CATS the musical off of iTunes, but everything you buy on iTunes can only be played on iTunes. It can't be burned to an audio CD (though you can haul the files around with you wherever you like, you just have to be logged into your iTunes account to listen to them). At the time, I had an iPod (okay, I still have an iPod), so I could listen to my original cast recording of CATS the musical that way.
Many years pass. More than I would care to admit.
It is 2019. CATS the musical the movie is out in theaters. I decide I would like to listen to my original cast recording of CATS the musical, however, some of my files are corrupted. No big deal, I can just go download them again. I own them after all.
The original cast recording of CATS the musical no longer exists on the iTunes store. It's gone. They have taken it down, presumably so that people will go listen to the new soundtrack for the new movie instead. I cannot re-download what no longer exists.
The only way I can listen to the album that I bought all that time ago is to listen on my iPod that I haven't updated now for the better part of a decade, and if I ever update it, I'll likely lose my original cast recording of CATS the musical.
Also, I'm very sorry for typing so much. I'm just very passionate about CATS.