The End of Physical Media

L-s-L69 writes "The register is reporting that Forrester is predicting that a third of all music sales will be made by downloads in the next five years. They also predict that almost 15 per cent of films will be viewed by "on-demand" services such as rather than by DVD or video by 2005. "

Comments

Really?

[mgcsinc]

So here's the question: what effect do these predictions have on the ways in which companies in control of these industries approach their market? Do companies move to prevent the predicted move to electronic means or do they embrace it because of it's new seeming inevitability? Or has Forrester taken the very effects of its own findings release into account? And if so, might companies recognize this and try to undermine the research adjustment by acting differently than it otherwise would. Don't you just love how these silly little viscous cycles can come out of attempts at predicting trends in a market so easily controlled?

Re:Really?

[QuackQuack]

Pretty much.

Who keeps track of what Forrester and Gartner predicted in the past? It would be pretty funny to see what they predicted the world would be like now five years ago. IIRC, Gartner said that we'd all be using NT now, and Linux would be nowhere.

I think the real value in these analysts are for companies who these trends favor. For example, a company who owns a piece of digital music sales can say "Forrester says 1/3 of all music sales will be digital." This helps attract customers and investors.

Obsolete or just used differently?

[immel]

The article says that CDs and DVDs will become obsolete. I think this is wrong. There will always have to be at least one hard copy that can't easily be deleted. Moreover, it says that people have already started to shun buying CDs. People haven't stopped buying CDs, they are just buying more blank ones. For those who see no need to spend several hundred dollars for an MP3 player in their home stereo or car, and then spending all the time and frustration installing it and syncing it with their PC, burning downloaded music onto CDs is a very viable alternative.