As we transitioned from vinyl records and cassette tapes to compact discs, we told ourselves and each other that this was better. Not only was it easy to transport CDs, they were digital. They would last forever.
Forever, unlike record albums, which could scratch, warp and otherwise deteriorate over time.
CDs would hold up forever. They would never deteriorate. When we were 80 years old, that Tracy Chapman album would still sound exactly the same. It would never get old.
We believed that, even though the evidence was right in front of us. If you bought enough CDs, you knew that some didn't work. Some got caught on a loop in your CD player, forcing you to skip a song. Some actually skipped, like an album or 45.
Still, we believed the propaganda. CDs would last forever, just like the lie that microwaves would heat food evenly, that the new dishwasher didn't require us to pre-wash the dishes, that our shirts will never wrinkle.
Ultimately, we forgot the promise of forever CDs, not because the lie was exposed, but because technology overtook them. Why listen to a CD when you can stream music?
I thought of that bubble of false confidence in CDs when I recently read an article about how many DVDs – which I think of as the visual equivalent of CDs, since they were to VHS tapes what CDs were to vinyl albums – are decomposing rapidly.
An editor of a movie blog site pulled out some old films on DVD to watch. They failed. The DVD stopped playing partway through. Or it never stopped.
This isn't something new. For years, DVD lovers have had the same experience, particularly with Warner Brothers Home Entertainment DVDs. You sit down with your DVD player (which most of us got rid of 10 years ago, along with our CD players and that old VHS player that we kept just in case), pop in a copy of a James Bond movie or "That's Entertainment 3," press play and . . . nothing. It doesn't start. Or it gets partway through and pauses.
Warner Brothers releases from 2008-2010 have been specifically targeted –- perhaps because that was the Great Recession and perhaps because the San Francisco Giants World Series title in 2010 broke the WB DVD Curse –but this shouldn't be a surprise.
Every new technology makes grandiose claims that it can't fulfill. Frozen food will make dinner simple, particularly with a microwave that heats evenly. A CD will never falter. A Nerf ball will never break a lamp. Self-driving cars won't go haywire.
But DVDs fail. CDs skip. That permanent press shirt you bought in 1978 is still in your closet, but it's wrinkled.
When people make claims about new technology – about artificial intelligence or electric cars or new TVs or a pill that will make you skinny with no side effects – keep in mind what happened to DVDs.
Technology overtook them and now they're useless. Although I guess anything that keeps you from watching "That's Entertainment 3" is probably worthwhile.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.