 What's ailing the music industry? Progress! ·Nov 28, 05:35 AM The music industry is bemoaning the fact that CD sales are down somewhat from their 2000-01 peak (although ignoring the fact that most of those revenues may be being made up for by sales of ringtones and digital tracks (the latter of which they claim to be “less profitable” than CD sales, although to the layman like me that would seem impossible, given that there are no costs of physical distribution))… But the problem for them, on the sales side, seems to me to simply be progress. For example, video game manufacturers are adding more and more value and fun in each generation Even more to the point, somehow movie studios have managed to bring DVD prices down and down and down, making them a better relative value to CDs every year. At Best Buy on Black Friday recently, you could buy some great movies (e.g., “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”) for $4.99. Many great movies (remember, two hours’ of video, with maybe four hours of audio if there’s a main soundtrack and a commentary track) are regularly available for $9.99 or $11.99. Meanwhile, record company execs are trying to pretend progress elsewhere in the world (i.e., in competitive product categories) doesn’t exist. They’re holding to prices of $9.99 to $17.99 for just 40 minutes of just audio! It’s amazing that CD sales are holding up as well as they are at these prices. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
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of their products, making them with every generation a better relative value to CDs.
