Originally posted by ahn1991:I honestly think the music industry was blindsided by how things are now, mainly because most of the business minds in the industry have been stuck thinking about how to make money off of the fans while the fans have been thinking about how to enjoy music for as little money as possible and as conveniently as possible. Thinking about it now, I think their fate was sealed the moment they switched to CDs as the main physical media to release music. The reason I believe this is because CDs encode music as nice prepackaged data files that can be easily extracted and copied. This combined with the fact that media players no longer require physical CDs will ultimately lead to the rapid decline of CD sales. However, if the sale of digital downloads were never implemented, CDs would always be a necessity. But, given the fact that demand for CDs would drop so low that it wouldn't be profitable to produce them, the industry adapted by converting their sales focus to digital downloads. This move makes all CDs essentially a commodity rather than a necessity. The only thing different between a physical CD and a digital download is the physical product. All of the content is the same, even linear notes.
We may see the day that physical CDs are phased out altogether, but a decent amount of people still see intrinsic value in owning physical copies. For example, physical CDs still make for great gifts while digital downloads, not so much. When I did research for a speech a while back, I found a lot of data suggesting that CD sales were still profitable for artists, just not nearly as profitable as they once were. As long as this trend holds, we will see physical CDs for bigger releases. But once CD sales stop generating a profit, we may very well see the death of physical CDs.
Originally posted by blueeyedboy:All valid points too. We could talk this topic to death too. And with two days until the next show, it might be a good thing to keep occupied!
Originally posted by ahn1991:[..]
http://u2start.com/topic/7220/24/12/
Found this topic in the archives and figured it would be a more appropriate place to continue this discussion. The last post was 5 years ago and my oh my have things changed since then.
Originally posted by ahn1991:I honestly think the music industry was blindsided by how things are now, mainly because most of the business minds in the industry have been stuck thinking about how to make money off of the fans while the fans have been thinking about how to enjoy music for as little money as possible and as conveniently as possible. Thinking about it now, I think their fate was sealed the moment they switched to CDs as the main physical media to release music. The reason I believe this is because CDs encode music as nice prepackaged data files that can be easily extracted and copied. This combined with the fact that media players no longer require physical CDs will ultimately lead to the rapid decline of CD sales. However, if the sale of digital downloads were never implemented, CDs would always be a necessity. But, given the fact that demand for CDs would drop so low that it wouldn't be profitable to produce them, the industry adapted by converting their sales focus to digital downloads. This move makes all CDs essentially a commodity rather than a necessity. The only thing different between a physical CD and a digital download is the physical product. All of the content is the same, even linear notes.
We may see the day that physical CDs are phased out altogether, but a decent amount of people still see intrinsic value in owning physical copies. For example, physical CDs still make for great gifts while digital downloads, not so much. When I did research for a speech a while back, I found a lot of data suggesting that CD sales were still profitable for artists, just not nearly as profitable as they once were. As long as this trend holds, we will see physical CDs for bigger releases. But once CD sales stop generating a profit, we may very well see the death of physical CDs.
Originally posted by AMLBONO:[..]
I work as a Manager for Best Buy here in Canada and 5 months ago we stopped carrying CDs all together in our stores. Not too many people have complained.
I remember when I started with the company back in 2006 a third of the store was music CDs. U2 had its it's own 4 foot section.
U2 amd Bruce Springsteen are the only artists that I still purchase physical CDs.
Originally posted by AMLBONO:Here in Canada we still have a few HMV stores and Sunrise Records in the GTA. Not too many CDs as they have switched focus on video games and movies.
I like the Sunrise Records locatons as they have increased the amount of vinyl they carry.
