Best Buy to quit selling CDs.

[DaveVoorhis]

AT&T just recently bought Time Warner. Just as there is a convergence of media underway, the number of players is going down pretty quickly too. It's not at all unreasonable to think that, not too far into the future, just a few corporations will control the entire media chain from source production of everything audio or visual to the end source of how you listen to or watch it.

Mainstream traditional media, perhaps.

But they have no influence on artist-to-consumer music distribution mechanisms like YouTube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp, or independent entertainment providers like Netflix and Amazon.

Ask your kids what they're watching and listening to. In other words, look into the future. Likely as not, it's the latter.

 

[intro6]

Mainstream traditional media, perhaps.

But they have no influence on artist-to-consumer music distribution mechanisms like YouTube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp, or independent entertainment providers like Netflix and Amazon.

Yes, at the present time, but who's to say that these entities will stay the same in the future. I've read at different times how the vast majority of "artists" on YouTube, for instance, generate little or no income. It seems like a situation that is ripe for some major pruning by some executive(s) in the future, if you know what I mean, especially if the industry continues it's trend toward heavy consolidation.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Yes, at the present time, but who's to say that these entities will stay the same in the future. I've read at different times how the vast majority of "artists" on YouTube, for instance, generate little or no income. It seems like a situation that is ripe for some major pruning by some executive(s) in the future, if you know what I mean, especially if the industry continues it's trend toward heavy consolidation.

The majority of artists on YouTube don't make money, but the majority of artists never make any money. That hasn't changed. What's changed is that an individual YouTube artist at least has the opportunity to be heard by everyone, which traditional media did not permit.

YouTube itself makes money. Whether Soundcloud, Bandcamp and the others make money or not, I can't say. However, the desire for some upstart to take on the old conglomerate will always be there, pushing back against corporate inclinations to consolidate.

 

[Condorsat]

The majority of artists on YouTube don't make money, but the majority of artists never make any money. That hasn't changed.

Oh no! … your ruining the fantasy. Knew a guy in High School who was a damn good bass guitarist. Chased the dream with various bands for years … nothing ever came of it.

 

[E-Stat]

I will go to my grave wanting physical media.

Physical media is great. I prefer the 2TB variety where all my music and video is instantly available from a single source.

 

[GChief]

I need to hurry and post some foil hats in BT...

 

[onwardjames]

Physical media is great. I prefer the 2TB variety where all my music and video is instantly available from a single source.

Ever had a hard drive just fail? I have.

I want a tangible product. I'm silly that way.

 

[onwardjames]

I need to hurry and post some foil hats in BT...

Just because I'm crazy, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.

Apropos then, apropos for damn certain right now.

 

[Guest158]

What about new stuff not on hard drive? Gotta get it somewhere....

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Ever had a hard drive just fail? I have.

I want a tangible product. I'm silly that way.

I want a tangible product that lasts. Vinyl gets borrowed and not returned, scratched, or left out in the heat to turn into a Dali clock. CDs and DVDs get disk rot, or require readers that will eventually become obsolete. Tape gets gooey and unusable.

The only tangible product that lasts are digital files, because they can be backed up -- copied -- and played indefinitely without even a single bit of degradation.

Nothing else allows that.

 

[E-Stat]

Ever had a hard drive just fail? I have.

Never have I lost any data due to drive failure.

There is a long standing concept in IT called “backups”. Every operating system used today includes utilities for such. I use five inexpensive USB drives on a rotational schedule where each runs for perhaps 30 minutes per month.

I will experience total failure before all of them do given their infrequent use.

Optical media gets scratched and can be irrevocably damaged.

 

[mgosdin]

Never have I lost any data due to drive failure.

I have. Many times. Backups invariable miss something. Even when you are working with multi-billion dollar businesses and skilled professionals.

I like having options, so I have all the physical media types and digital equivalents where possible. I do keep redundant copies of the digital data since it is fairly cheap & easy to do.

Back to the OP, yesterday I and my two oldest sons went to Best Buy to get a birthday present. This store has reorganized their Video area taking up the CD space. Interestingly they appear to have Less video stock than before, with a noticeably bigger aisle space between the racks.

They still have their "Treasure Bin" with all the remaining CD stock in it. Since there were three of us we dug thru the bin and came up with a couple of CD's to buy.

Mark Gosdin

 

[E-Stat]

I have. Many times. Backups invariable miss something.

Sorry to hear that. Perhaps you are in need of better software or a more thorough approach!

In this case, however, all my content is found under a single parent folder not surprisingly called "music". Miss what?

 

[DaveVoorhis]

I have. Many times. Backups invariable miss something. Even when you are working with multi-billion dollar businesses and skilled professionals.

If your "skilled professionals" are missing something that matters in your backups, they might "skilled professionals" of some sort, but they're not skilled IT, computer, or data management professionals.

My multiple at-home and offsite backups contain everything I want to keep, which is why they're called "backups" rather than "some but not all of my files."

They're safer than source physical media, too. A fire or malicious damage[1] could wipe out my CDs or records, but a hard drive failure is barely more than an inconvenience.

--
[1] About fifteen years ago, a co-worker of mine went through a rough breakup with his spouse; as a parting shot she destroyed his entire -- and vast -- CD and DVD collection.

 

[quaddriver]

Approximately 40% of our population are documentable assholes, and that figure seems to be rising.

"

its the undocumented assholes that we need to build a wall to keep out.... ;-)

day after net neutrality ended, in our single market comcast location, they started throttling streaming services if their stream package also had it. they had been monitoring usage for the last year and can alter QoS by device

comcast = spawn of satan.

In the town of irwin pa, comcast, fios and windstream compete. their bills are a little over HALF of what I pay. in the township of north huntingdon, which surrounds irwin, comcast pays the commissioners well to remain the ONLY supplier. (PA lets towns regulate service providers, even if they have capability, they cannot service you.)

 

[quaddriver]

Never have I lost any data due to drive failure.

There is a long standing concept in IT called “backups”. Every operating system used today includes utilities for such. I use five inexpensive USB drives on a rotational schedule where each runs for perhaps 30 minutes per month.

I will experience total failure before all of them do given their infrequent use.

Optical media gets scratched and can be irrevocably damaged.

I the first sentence is true, then we are hiring you later today. Pack your bags Mr Smith. In the course I give to entities and companies about resiliency, I state, with a guarantee, that some live data is always lost in an unplanned failure. (ESPECIALLY if you are using dataguard with oracle)

so this would be a change in paradigm!

 

[DaveVoorhis]

In the course I give to entities and companies about resiliency, I state, with a guarantee, that some live data is always lost in an unplanned failure.

There's a significant difference between losing live transactional data -- which is what you're talking about -- and making a backup of a static music (or any other static data) archive, for which there is no excuse for losing anything, ever.

 

[quaddriver]

There's a significant difference between losing live transactional data -- which is what you're talking about -- and making a backup of a static music (or any other static data) archive, for which there is no excuse for losing anything, ever.

sorta, kinda, almost, but usually never.

one could say - depends on your OS and where the 'static' data is kept. even windoze moves shit around to suit itself at time. but anyways, on topic, where do you think artifacts or pixel desegregation come from? Blob data is not checked for any integrity. so if we are talking 'agh, half my zztop library is gone' it becomes less likely yes (unless your USB backup device suffers from 'stiction' or banding issues which happens more often than you might be aware) but loss is occurring on a bit basis. unless you are storing it in EMP proof boxes in iron mtn...even cd/dvds degrade from environmental factors. WHO decides for fate which bit is not critical?

(sidebar: recall the 9/11 attacks, one station had its broadcast or some portion of the transmission from the towers and when service was interrupted, the station rock and rolled on the same image frame all day until it was taken down, long after the towers were a heap, over the course of the hours, the picture was degrading into almost a solarized effect as data was lost.)

at any rate the phrase 'in the unlikely event of an actual emergency....' is not just a cliche catch phrase. I got a couple backup devices in the drawer here you can have to try and recover half of my zztop collection from. it is most likely true that everything you are using came from the lowest chinese bidder...you dont trust them for one single transistor in your amp, but a few billion in one tiny package on your desk is ok? Im not being contrary, but 'it can never happen' is just not viable...

 

[DaveVoorhis]

sorta, kinda, almost, but usually never.

one could say - depends on your OS and where the 'static' data is kept. even windoze moves shit around to suit itself at time. but anyways, on topic, where do you think artifacts or pixel desegregation come from?

What is "pixel desegregation"?

I last had a bad read from a physical rewritable disc when I was still using 1.44mb floppy disks. CDROMs and CDs are far more likely to fail and fail outright. Multiple redundant backups on multiple machines, multiple hard drives, and multiple cloud providers afford far greater reliability than any single-source physical medium.

Im not being contrary, but 'it can never happen' is just not viable...

With multiple redundant backups, "almost never" -- and by that, I mean astronomically unlikely -- is a reasonable assurance.

"It can never happen", well no, there's always a possibility that some cascade of errors will lead to catastrophe, but there's a far greater chance of that happening to a single vinyl record than many digital backups.

 

[quaddriver]

What is "pixel desegregation"?

.

failure to turn off autocorrect...it should read 'degradation', or mebbe we are letting pixels of all colors now coexist as they should!

Multiple redundant backups on multiple machines, multiple hard drives, and multiple cloud providers afford far greater reliability than any single-source physical medium.

now that is true but this:

and multiple cloud providers

means that when we put many wonderful things across the bridge, mal-actors merely need to change their target, to be more effective. Its just a modern restatement of the 70's era 'angry neighbor vs. refrigerator' soviet doctrine...


(in the cold war, the soviets looked at warfare as thus: if you are mad at your neighbors, you can defeat them by starving them and you can starve them by beating the crap out of all their regrigerators OR just pull the plug at the source....(emp->power grid)