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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."
No it's clearly soulless pirates who are worse than the scum that steal candy from crippled blind penniless orphaned cute puppies. Studies have shown that the total cost of piracy over $180 trillion dollars per day in North Dakota alone. Doesn't have anything to do with this "recession" the liberals keep trying to pretend is happening.
But yes, when prices go up and/or willingness to spend goes down, people start cutting luxuries. For some, it's buying music. For others, it's obtaining new music. It's called market forces and the RIAA is going to have to learn to deal with it sooner or later.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
This is true, but music had much better mastering 20 years ago. Thanks to the loudness war, that "all-time favourite band you havn't heard yet" is probably ruined by clipping and compressor pumping. It doesn't matter how skilled the musicians are if the recording is unlistenable.