Actually, it seems to me the benefits of Protools' lower costs are passed on to the consumer, just not necessarily in lower CD prices.
It seems like the availability of music has increased in the Protools era - by that I mean its cheaper and easier for artists to produce the music. And its also easier, though not due to Protools as directly, to distribute small quantities of that music through low quantity CD runs and MP3 distribution services like MP3.com or IUMA. That seems like a benefit to those of us who like to venture beyond the mainstream.
But Protools does nothing to help with the kind of large market distribution that the big labels are good at, even as they use their leverage to maximize profits at the artists' expense.
And price of most of the music people buy is based on the value consumers have placed on the final product more than the costs of producing and marketing it.
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Actually, it seems to me the benefits of Protools' lower costs are passed on to the consumer, just not necessarily in lower CD prices.
It seems like the availability of music has increased in the Protools era - by that I mean its cheaper and easier for artists to produce the music. And its also easier, though not due to Protools as directly, to distribute small quantities of that music through low quantity CD runs and MP3 distribution services like MP3.com or IUMA. That seems like a benefit to those of us who like to venture beyond the mainstream.
But Protools does nothing to help with the kind of large market distribution that the big labels are good at, even as they use their leverage to maximize profits at the artists' expense.
And price of most of the music people buy is based on the value consumers have placed on the final product more than the costs of producing and marketing it.