Souvenir Shop
The economy of the town I live in is driven primarily by tourism. That means that along the main street, there are a bunch of little shops selling T-shirts and other SWAG that's embossed with the name of the city. There's lots of little items that are supposed to remind you of the time you came to visit our little beach town. They're selling souvenirs.
As I was walking down main street yesterday, I passed a little music store that deals in new and used CDs and LPs. I don't often go in there, since I have little use for CDs, but on this particular day, I went in. And as walked around among the racks of CDs and LPs, I started to see the CDs the same way as the LPs.
If you're my age (around 30), then you may have gotten introduced to records in the same way I did: your parent's old collection. In the house where I grew up, my parents had a big shelf full of records, a relic of a by-gone era. They still had a few working record players, so I was able to listen to them. Call it being a passive, uncreative MC.
In visiting a few friends recently, I noticed that those CD towers loaded with jewel cases had gone the same route. They now sit in a corner or spare bedroom, largely neglected and collecting dust. They've become a relic, much like LPs were ten or twenty years ago.
Pointing out that CDs are outmoded is not much of an insight, but what surprises me is that nothing has taken their place. Granted, digital music works fine for me, but there's a reason that e-commerce is still a very small portion of overall retail sales: we still want to do our shopping in person. Going out and buying physical copies of music is still important to us. If the music store selling CDs and LPs were just selling souvenirs, they might have a very difficult time staying in business.
I wonder exactly why the music industry hasn't starting selling jump drive loaded with albums. Whenever most people buy a CD, the first thing they do is run home and rip it onto their computer, so they have it backed up in MP3 format. Why not cut out this middleman and just sell hard copies of DRM-free, digital music? I used to love buying CDs because I felt like I was purchasing joy in a jewel case...you could still deliver that joy on a jump drive.
Digital music and the retail experience are not mutually exclusive. People will continue to buy music in places other than Amazon. It's been ten years since Napster came onto the scene...why hasn't the music industry caught on yet?
As I was walking down main street yesterday, I passed a little music store that deals in new and used CDs and LPs. I don't often go in there, since I have little use for CDs, but on this particular day, I went in. And as walked around among the racks of CDs and LPs, I started to see the CDs the same way as the LPs.
If you're my age (around 30), then you may have gotten introduced to records in the same way I did: your parent's old collection. In the house where I grew up, my parents had a big shelf full of records, a relic of a by-gone era. They still had a few working record players, so I was able to listen to them. Call it being a passive, uncreative MC.
In visiting a few friends recently, I noticed that those CD towers loaded with jewel cases had gone the same route. They now sit in a corner or spare bedroom, largely neglected and collecting dust. They've become a relic, much like LPs were ten or twenty years ago.
Pointing out that CDs are outmoded is not much of an insight, but what surprises me is that nothing has taken their place. Granted, digital music works fine for me, but there's a reason that e-commerce is still a very small portion of overall retail sales: we still want to do our shopping in person. Going out and buying physical copies of music is still important to us. If the music store selling CDs and LPs were just selling souvenirs, they might have a very difficult time staying in business.
I wonder exactly why the music industry hasn't starting selling jump drive loaded with albums. Whenever most people buy a CD, the first thing they do is run home and rip it onto their computer, so they have it backed up in MP3 format. Why not cut out this middleman and just sell hard copies of DRM-free, digital music? I used to love buying CDs because I felt like I was purchasing joy in a jewel case...you could still deliver that joy on a jump drive.
Digital music and the retail experience are not mutually exclusive. People will continue to buy music in places other than Amazon. It's been ten years since Napster came onto the scene...why hasn't the music industry caught on yet?