Implement a media/{media}/download route

Should this issue be moved into Core > Media issues perhaps? I think it's still relevant?

Also see ✨ Bake Media Entity File Redirect into Core Media Active

Since the media_entity module has moved to core a long time ago it is no longer used, so we should either move this issue or just close it. I personally think that a contrib module like https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_download → is a great solution. Not 100% convinced that core should provide this out-of-the-box. But I guess it's fine to move it to the core issue queue to get more opinions.

Thanks @seanB! Moving this into the core issues. I agree it's discussable if this should go into core, but to have the full picture, we should take a look at the issues users still have with replacing media and linking file URLs directly.

There are several modules out there trying to solve this, and I think there are not many larger Drupal projects which don't run into this issue after a while. That's what core should improve.

I think these are the most important solutions currently:
https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_file_redirect →
https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_file_replace →
https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_download →
https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_file_redirect →
https://www.drupal.org/project/file_replace →

From my perspective, the approach taken in https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_file_redirect → is the best and most reliable.

Ultimately I think core will need to address this, yes. It has been a question on nearly every Drupal project going back to Drupal 6 for me. A permanent URI abstraction seems necessary with less importance on the actual file name IMO.

This probably needs to be configurable, at least per media type (maybe even per media item). I can imagine you don't want to provide downloads for all media types. Images are debatable, but external media like youtube/vimeo video's are problematic.

We could provide a base field like promote / sticky with a default value configurable in the media type, including permissions for the field. It feels like this feature is a bit similar. We should then probably also allow media sources to opt-in to usage of the field (file based media should have that, but oEmbed media probably not).

If I'm understanding correctly, https://www.drupal.org/project/media_alias_display → is a great solution. Doesn't use the suggested route, but enables the requested functionality.