It is worth noting that such a move by Sony will affect 250 of the 670 workers who will be offered early retirement at the factory. The phase-out will not affect the production of discs used in the audio, video and gaming technology markets.

Disks are still needed

Despite the evolution of streaming services, there is still a consumer base that prefers physical media for higher quality audio and video recordings as well as the ability to create personal collections. In addition, problems such as the inability to find previously purchased digital content have strengthened the preference of some users for physical media.

Still, the trend shows a significant decline in demand for optical discs, as optical disc drives (ODDs) are no longer a staple of today’s desktop and laptop computers.

Consumers are increasingly turning to alternative data storage solutions:

• external hard drives,
• solid state drives,
• memory cards,
• flash drives,
• network storage (NAS),
• Cloud services for data backup.

We can only accurately express the development of data storage technologies and the change in consumer preferences that is gaining momentum every year. Currently, we can conclude that in the near future disks will become very exotic information carriers and will completely disappear from widespread use.