The album on the shelf and the layer on the screen

Print advocates are right about permanence and wrong about circulation: albums outlast formats and still get opened twice a decade.

printed photo albums vs Bubbles In Time — the short version

Bubbles In Time uses Android's display-over-other-apps permission (SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW) to float your photos above whatever you're doing, then get out of the way.

• Permanence: print wins outright — no format, platform, or company can delete a printed page. Keep printing the pillars.
• Circulation: the rotation wins outright — the album waits for a visit; the bubble makes one. Different physics.
• The stack: print the fifty pillars, float the fifty favorites (heavy overlap encouraged), archive the rest. Each layer does its actual job.
• Cost note: one photo book typically costs 10x the entire floating layer. Do both anyway.

What's the honest bottom line?

Every option here has a legitimate job. Bubbles In Time's job is specific: your chosen memories, floating over your whole day, on-device, for one $2.99 purchase. Where that's the job you're hiring for, the choice gets simple.