Slashdot Mirror
17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008
Houston 2600 sends along an Ars Technica writeup on the continuing downward trend in the traditional music business: NPD's annual survey found that 17 million CD customers dropped out last year. Among the good news is that streaming services such as Pandora are growing fast. "While overall music sales were up 10 percent in 2008, the year saw a drop not only in CD sales, but also in the number of customers actually purchasing music. But according to a new report, the act of listening to music is actually on the rise. ... NPD's annual Digital Music Study found that there were 17 million fewer CD customers in 2008 than in past years. CD sales have been dropping for quite some time, and while 1.5 billion songs were sold digitally last year, the number of Internet users paying for digital music only increased by 8 million in 2008."
Now your drop in overall sales is more likey due to the shoddy music that is out on the market today as compared to 5-10 years ago but that is just the music cycle.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
This is actually a pretty good, simple way to describe a deflationary cycle.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Let's compare buying a CD from a retail store versus downloading, shall we? Let's say you hear this rad Britney tune on some awesome Youtube mashup and you just have to have it, right freaking now.
Retail:
1) Get out of bed. Not something I do willingly.
2) Shower. Or not. Depends on how offensive your personal aroma is. After 2 days without a shower, I smell like roses and candy.
3) Get dressed. Okay, so I don't have any clean underwear. I'll just flip these inside out, nobody can see the skidmarks.
4) Find car keys. For me, it's usually a 5 minute desperate search until I realize that they're already in my pocket.
5) Drive to store. Traffic sucks, gas costs money and if I get another moving violation, I lose my license. No, Officer Friendly, I have no idea how fast I was going. Why don't you let me in on the secret?
6) Park in big box store parking lot. It's a long freaking walk in direct sunlight, and my basement-dwelling geek-pale skin might just burst into flame. Lean against door to rest. Wheeze loudly.
7) Go into store and find desired CD. Lookit that, they're out of stock and I came all this way. Shucks.
8) Stand in long-ass checkout line behind Welfare Queen and her brood. Screaming kids are always a pleasure, the little darlings.
9) Pay uncaring, minimum-wage clerk $14 for your purchase. For 6 bucks an hour, you KNOW she cares what you think.
10) Drive back home. More gas, more traffic, more chances for that moving violation.
11) Open CD. Break out Sawzall to cut through multiple layers of plastic and security tape. Cut finger open. Curse loudly.
12) Rip CD to disc. Can't browse porn while it's ripping or it might mess up. Hunt through 433 cable channels for something to watch while CD rips.
13) Upload to mp3 player. Rock out to Britney's latest. FINALLY!
Elapsed time: 90 minutes, $14 plus gas, plus cost of speeding ticket (if any).
Download:
1) Roll over in bed, open laptop, brush Cheetos dust off sausage-like fingers, click on Amazon.
2) Pay 99 cents for the one track you want.
3) Browse porn for the 60 seconds or so it takes to download.
3) Upload to MP3 player. Rock out.
Elapsed time: 3 minutes tops, 99 cents. No clothing, no shower, no speeding ticket.
- Pithy comment goes here.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077402/ Great movie.
Got a citation for that?
Yeah. My EARS.
Yeah yeah, I quoted the wrong bit. It was "it's becoming more popular" BS that I wanted a citation for. Obviously FLAC must be at least as good as the WAV/CD source it was pulled from, as it's completely lossless compression.
But no one is going to use it. Well, no one outside of a very tiny group of people who care. ie, not people who use magic words like "imaging" and "soundstage" (BTW, anyone who seriously uses those terms in casual conversation immediately gets the label "audiophile douchebag", IMHO... the very fact you believe you can tell the difference between FLAC and CD because of "USB jitter" just proves it).