The compact disc (CD) has been a mainstay for the music industry
for years. However, with the ability to download songs from the internet,
they have been slowly been phased out. Allow me to explain the obvious.
Death of multi-song disks: The main reason is the price of the
songs themselves. Allot of music listeners bought CD's to simply listen
to one song over and over again. But they had to pay the cost for not
only that one song, but every song on that CD. So once you could just buy
the songs you like people stopped bothering to buy these multi song discs.
Heck, why would you want to pay for something you do not have too.
So many record companies and bands are looking to simply sell direct to
the consumer through the internet. Here people can preview other songs
and buy them if they like. This helps many small bands and record
companies that cannot afford to release all those CD's and thus allows them to
cut out yet another middle man in the process of selling their goods (music) to
their customers.
Impact: Soon we will lose the CD player all together just
like we did with cassette tapes in the last few years. Instead, we will
have USB cables from our phones, digital music players and thumb drives plug in
instead to listen to the songs we want to hear, and only the songs we want to
hear. And even then, they may eliminate the plug in system all together
and just have the system link wirelessly to your car radio and radio systems
(which is already being done and improved upon). But if you think about
it, this means the elimination of yet another industry. Yes people will
lose jobs, but that is the creative destruction of the market. In
addition, movies will be bought and sold in the same way, which will eliminate
the need for DVD and Blue ray players. Why worry about quality by buying
a new system when TV's will have upgradable programing to get more and more
detail out of every show that you watch. Video games too will shift to an
all-digital transfer system too, so you can avoid the lines at release and just
buy the game online at a much cheaper cost. Basically, it will work in
the same way as when you rent or buy an electronic book from Amazon or Barnes
& Noble. You can buy to keep or buy to rent. Soon we will see
all media entertainment digitized with very few exceptions as we transition
away from expensive production lines and embrace a completely internet based
economy. Heck, they may even set up online swap meets for certain content
especially when patent rights expire. This even allows patent rights to
be global too (almost forgot that one).
Conclusion: I personally think books will be
the sole exception to total digitization as people still have a nostalgia type
feeling when it comes to reading a book. However, everything else is all
about saving money for both the producer and the consumer, with the
downloadable content on the internet allowing for the bands themselves to sell
their music without the need for a record company. It allows moviegoers
to purchase the movie they just saw the moment they are released in theaters
after testing to see if it is worth the $5 or less. Gamers can get any
video game they want from any platform, and play them all on television via
their computers. I can see it now, rather than trying to buy a new game
system, the companies will compete on the release of the best controllers to
enhance game play (they may even release special televisions for games like
they do computers). Overall, the internet is one of the greatest inventions
mankind has ever known, and it is sure to continue changing the way we live and
how we buy and sell our wares.
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