Books and CDs/casettes were much more important and impressive. Kind of like magical in a way. You can say they still are, but imo it’s not the same. Back then you had to buy them or risk forever losing that piece of media. You liked two songs but you got the whole CD anyway, you got that book just in case and if you were into collecting images you would buy loads, on stuff you didn’t even care about, just because the photos were interesting.

Video rental places had an energy similar to a candy shop. You wanted to taste all of them.

In a way all those media now feel maybe valuable, collectible, but not really essential. They aren’t as special anymore. I think it’s easy to imagine what it was like but if you didn’t live through it you wouldn’t fully get it, it’s like explaining doing drugs or giving birth, one of those things that you can easily understand logically but only when you experience it you grasp the concept entirely. Crazy to think that probably most things from our cultural past are exactly like that and no matter how much we study them we will never truly understand them.