Now, seven years later, I’m moving again. Sure, I’ve moved four other times between leaving for college and now, but this time seems different. It’s the first time I’m moving into a place that I’m actually excited about: a loft in downtown Des Moines – it’s a beautiful place, polished concrete floors, granite counters, old brick walls, soaring windows, vaulted ceilings, a nice view. I’m excited.

But, good god: moving. My girlfriend and I have so much stuff. I know that two people will always have more stuff than just one, but we’ve rented a fourteen-foot truck and I’m a little worried it’s not going to be enough.

We aren’t people who collect things, either, but stuff tends to accumulate somehow. I can count the number of DVDs we have on my fingers. We don’t own any CDs anymore – all our music is digital. So are most of our movies. I try to keep my video game media as digital as I can, but sometimes I can’t bring myself to throw out all those pretty boxes.

But as I was packing my seventh box of books last night, I took a break to look into the Amazon Kindle and Sony E-Reader. I’ve looked at them before, but I couldn’t help but wish for digital books while taking a break from packing my physical ones. I’m not ready to take the plunge yet, but I’ll probably be there soon, once the Digital Rights Management gets a little more lax. After reading recently about the hidden number of downloads some Kindle books have, I’m not at all eager to spend money in that arena.

But, ebooks are a big enough topic that I could devote an entire post to them, and I don’t want to get too sidetracked. This post is about stuff and the digital movement and ebooks are only one aspect of the whole thing.

I have to admit, I don’t understand physical collectors, no matter what they collect – DVDs, books, CDs, angel-shaped ceramics, pets or anything else. I’m not talking about stuff in general – I have stuff that I use everyday, but collections, that’s what I don’t quite get.

Going paperless has been a business goal for a number of years and many people have almost gotten there. But I advocate taking the paperless movement even further for all types of media – movies, music, books, and any other information that can be displayed on a screen or played through a speaker.

Ideally, I’d like to get rid of all my books, my last few DVDs, my video game boxes, and everything else. All I want is a desktop, a laptop, a phone, a television, a ebook device, a mobile gaming device, and maybe a console system. I don’t want to own any of the media for those devices. I want to download it all, or have it available online. I’m sick of stacks of books, movies in various formats, game boxes, and all the rest. I want everything digital. I’m sick of stuff.

Of course, this isn’t my idea – it’s already happening. Steam, iTunes, and other digital distributors are taking off. I just want it to happen faster. But when it comes to changing culture, it always comes down to cold card cash.

As a dirty example: there’s a reason that organic farming and other pro-environment causes haven’t taken off (a digital lifestyle could be looked at as a pro-environment cause), and it’s simply about money. You can talk the advantages (for the land, the consumer, and the farmer) of organic farming until you’re blue in the face and the customer will nod her head and go along with you, until she gets to the cash register and notices all her organic veggies cost a dollar or two more.

Instead, people try to change cultural expectations with awareness drives and guilt-mongering articles and all that other touchy-feely crap that doesn’t do a goddamn thing. Change the money, friends. Give organic farmers a tax break. Raise the taxes of non-organic farms. Lower the price at the cash register. Do that and everyone will be organic within a few short years.

The same thing needs to happen to encourage a digital lifestyle. Change the money. The average consumer isn’t stuff-phobic like me – the average consumer likes to own and collect stuff. Talking up the cultural advantages of a digital lifestyle aren’t enough. Change the cash.

Ebooks, digital movies, and digital music should be half the price of a physical copy. At least. Cheaper is better. In fact, the cheaper the price point, the more people will buy it. If nothing else, the iPhone App Store is teaching us that. Put up a game up at five bucks and twenty people will buy it. Drop the price to 99 cents and a hundred people will buy it. In the end, you make more by moving more units. And it’s not like digital sales cost you a dime. The old laws of supply are demand are thrown on their heads when supply is digitally infinite.

Of course, there are disadvantages to the digital movement – DRM is a problem, especially if a company goes out of business. Internet access is also an issue – if you don’t have it, you’re stuck. But those problems are being worked out. DRM seems to be losing – music can be bought DRM free and so can some video games. Web access is becoming more and more widespread – people are getting connected everywhere.

It’s an exciting time, but I wish it would speed up so I could purge as much stuff as possible. Cash incentives would help with this. So would offering consumers more value instead of more packaging, discs, paper, and other stuff.

I want to get rid of the rest of my stuff. In the meantime, you’ll find me cramming it into a truck, sighing, and dreaming of a digital lifestyle.

-m. out

p.s. come help me move. I’ll give you some stuff.