What used to be an heirloom is now a file that belongs to nobody

The argument

The second argument concerns the objects that have ceased to be objects at all. Proponents of this position argue that a great many of the things previous generations handed down were ordinary possessions whose physical existence was incidental to their purpose: records, photograph albums, letters, books, cards, maps and the accumulated paper of a life. These were kept not because anyone intended an heirloom but because they existed and had to be put somewhere. Proponents argue that the equivalents today have no physical existence to be kept. Music is a subscription, photographs sit on a service, letters are messages in an account, and documents are files. They add that the difference is not merely that these take up no space but that they are frequently not owned: access depends on a company continuing to operate and on a password nobody else has, and when the account lapses the contents do not pass to anyone the way a shoebox of photographs did. Proponents argue that this is why families increasingly inherit nothing from decades that were more thoroughly documented than any before. They argue the loss extends to the things that made old objects worth having. A handed-down book carries an inscription, a bent corner and someone else's marginal notes, and proponents argue that the marks of use are much of what gives such an object its value. A file carries no such traces, is identical to every other copy, and cannot show that it was used at all. The argument concludes that because the ordinary possessions which used to become antiques have been converted into holdings that are neither physical nor owned, we have stopped creating antiques.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that the argument mistakes a change of medium for an absence of inheritance, since digital collections are routinely passed on through shared accounts, exported archives and inherited devices, and are far more likely to survive intact than paper, which burns, damps and is thrown out by executors. They add that the premise about traces of use understates what digital records carry, including dates, locations, revisions and the whole conversation around an item. Critics also argue that physical objects have not disappeared but changed category, and that the vinyl records, cameras and handheld consoles of recent decades are already collected and traded as the antiques of the future.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Households still accumulate physical possessions in quantity, including furniture, tools, clothing, instruments and the devices themselves, so the shift described covers one category rather than inheritance as a whole. [Rejecting P2] Digital collections are routinely passed on through shared accounts, exported archives and inherited devices, and are more likely to survive intact than paper, which burns, damps and is discarded by executors. [Rejecting P3] Digital records carry their own traces of use, including dates, locations, revisions and the surrounding conversation, which paper rarely preserves so fully. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that one kind of heirloom has changed form, not that the creation of antiques has stopped.