A big part of it comes to the dying throws of a scarcity model that has been in progress for the past several decades. Data, or media, can be duplicated with trivial cost where a bit of bread or plank of wood cannot. Scarcity adds a premium onto the value of something irreplaceable.

Mass produced media holds less value individually to the average user since they have no stake on the creation, but family photos do since they have personal ties to them. Both are at the end just bits on a disk though.

What gives gives something functionally infinate in supply then is that the person holding it sees it as important, or in the case of purchases goods that they've exchanged something of known value for it. I don't have a clear answer on how to give permanence to something that can stop existing with a few keystrokes, but a part of that is in not ceding control to another entity over access to it.