Best Buy to quit selling CDs.

[OMGCat!]

The CD's longevity was part of its own demise. It raised a generation of people who had no idea what Rupert Holmes meant when he sang about "a worn-out recording of a favorite song". Yes, CDs can get scratched or suffer from disc "rot", but in my collection of 700+ CDs, the vast majority of which I bought used, only a handful have ever become unplayable.

And why buy CDs when you can check them out for free at your local public library? And then proceed to not make copies of them, of course...

Of the thousands of CDs I've owned and handled I've never actually seen disc rot first hand aside from cheap CDR discs that had been stored in a hot car for the better part of a decade. I've still got early CDs that my mom brought home when she worked for the WEA plant in Scranton, probably from '84-85, that still look and play just fine.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

I'd be looking to a failure external to the drives, such as a supply glitch that caused multiple drives to fail.

Undoubtedly sometimes the case, though in the late 80's I supported a school division's worth of school IT equipment. Starting one Monday morning, we had Seagate hard drive after Seagate hard drive all fail within hours -- though sometimes days; the failures occurred all week but mainly Monday -- as their bearings seized up. They were running in different desktop machines used by the admin staff at different schools, but all were part of the same batch and had run almost exactly the same number of hours, starting up every morning at precisely 8.30 or whatever and being shutdown exactly at 4pm every school day.

That week sucked.

 

[mgosdin]

That week sucked.

Ouch. I'm sure you were really popular in the Principal's office that week.

Earlier this year I was re-ripping a group of older CD's in my collection when I ran into a Belgian pressing of a Gerry Rafferty CD that had terminal disk rot. I'd bought it new some 15 years ago. It's the first and only CD that I've had die that way.

CD-R's on the other hand ...

Mark Gosdin

 

[roadrunnerx]

I still collect old cd's in my market for .25 to .50. I have some very nice players that I enjoy using. I enjoy the occasional surprise.
Streaming will win but then they will control the listening market like old radio was pay for play. Just a marketing fact.
The market has changed to ear buds and elevated bass in so many recordings. Small is in, think mini home.
Somewhere in the near future, I expect audiophiles will be a thing of the past.....? Just my thoughts.

 

[vwestlife]

I was in my local Best Buy today and they had all their CDs dumped into a bin and priced at $5.99 each.

Compared to the DVDs and Blu-rays they were selling for $3.99 each, that didn't seem like such a bargain.

 

[JJCalvillo]

As long as artists are still making records their music will be available on some sort of physical media.

I hope so.

 

[Condorsat]

The CD's longevity was part of its own demise. It raised a generation of people who had no idea what Rupert Holmes meant when he sang about "a worn-out recording of a favorite song". Yes, CDs can get scratched or suffer from disc "rot", but in my collection of 700+ CDs, the vast majority of which I bought used, only a handful have ever become unplayable.

And why buy CDs when you can check them out for free at your local public library? And then proceed to not make copies of them, of course...

I realize hind site is 20/20 .. but one thing I will never be able to understand is why the industry came up with a digital format (no copy protection) and then used the same exact format for PC storage/media? You would think that some visionary (Steve Jobs type) back then would have spoke up and said "wait a minute, maybe this is not such a good idea".

 

[DaveVoorhis]

As long as artists are still making records their music will be available on some sort of physical media.

For better or worse, it's doubtful. Younger artists mainly distribute music via YouTube, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud, not spinning plastic. Whilst there's undoubtedly novelty value and retro-appeal in vinyl records and cassette tapes, "owning" a physical music disc (or tape) has little appeal to most young listeners beyond being an "antique" gimmick. The popularity of streaming has already caused a dramatic decline in popularity of CDs. Whilst CDs may bounce back for a time when young people rediscover them -- like vinyl records are doing now -- as our generation dies out and fewer and fewer new generations grow up with fond childhood memories of vinyl or CDs to relive, it will dwindle away and is thus unlikely to endure except as relatively uncommon vintage and novelty collectibles.

Streaming is capable of higher audio quality than Redbook CD, vinyl, or tape, and is cheaper to produce, distribute, and limit unlawful copying. Compared to physical media, it represents greater long-term profit potential than physical media for the copyright and distribution rights holders. Once nostalgia and novelty around physical media dies out, there will simply be no commercial or audio-quality justification to produce it.

Though this won't necessarily happen quickly. Indeed, it might not fully come to pass within most of our lifetimes, so we needn't worry about it.

 

[grillebilly]

Bandcamp

That place is rather new to me. I've used it to search out new bands. Nearly every one that interests me puts out collector edition vinyl, as well as CD's and of course downloads. Almost every show I go to, the bands have a merch table with physical media.
Streaming quality may be the cat's meow in the future, but right now it's debatable.
I don't have a crystal ball but I'm sticking to my hypothesis. Like you said, what the future holds doesn't matter if we are not here to be part of it.

 

[Djcoolray]

I would think that online sales are so much cheaper, brick and mortar can’t compete !!

 

[DaveVoorhis]

I would think that online sales are so much cheaper, brick and mortar can’t compete !!

In the UK, large, formerly-successful major retailers have already fallen to the strength of Amazon. Online sales are often (but not always) much cheaper, and brick and mortar stores largely can't compete.

 

[N8Nagel]

I realize hind site is 20/20 .. but one thing I will never be able to understand is why the industry came up with a digital format (no copy protection) and then used the same exact format for PC storage/media? You would think that some visionary (Steve Jobs type) back then would have spoke up and said "wait a minute, maybe this is not such a good idea".

Really, it was a GREAT idea... for consumers... just ask my NAS

It's fantastic to not have to have infrastructure to have all my CDs readily available when I can just call up all of the ones I own, plus my girlfriend's too, with software. On my cell phone no less.

 

[zebra03]

My local Walmart has new CD's for $5 .

 

[vwestlife]

I realize hind site is 20/20 .. but one thing I will never be able to understand is why the industry came up with a digital format (no copy protection) and then used the same exact format for PC storage/media? You would think that some visionary (Steve Jobs type) back then would have spoke up and said "wait a minute, maybe this is not such a good idea".

Remember that CDs and CD-ROMs were strictly a read-only format until the first "affordable" CD burner drives hit the market in 1995 -- which cost $1000, and blank CD-R discs cost $15 each. So why spend all that money to copy CDs when the blank discs alone cost as much as just buying another CD?

It was only after the advent of Napster and the beginning of the decline of CD sales in 2001 that the music industry started freaking out about it. And then they came up with the great idea of "copy protected" CDs that installed a rootkit virus on your computer... (facepalm)

 

[Condorsat]

Remember that CDs and CD-ROMs were strictly a read-only format until the first "affordable" CD burner drives hit the market in 1995 -- which cost $1000, and blank CD-R discs cost $15 each. So why spend all that money to copy CDs when the blank discs alone cost as much as just buying another CD?

It was only after the advent of Napster and the beginning of the decline of CD sales in 2001 that the music industry started freaking out about it. And then they came up with the great idea of "copy protected" CDs that installed a rootkit virus on your computer... (facepalm)

MP3 Lossy software (free download) was the match that lit the CD (not copy protected/PC media) … which was the fuel for the fire. Did the industry think computer technology would not evolve over the years?

 

[danrclem]

My local Walmart has new CD's for $5 .

My local Walmart just quit selling the $5 cds and started selling vinyl and the rest of the cd selection is anemic. I had bought several of the $5 cds in the past couple years so I hated to see it end.

 

[zebra03]

Best Buy's selection was really dwindling anyways .

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Did the industry think computer technology would not evolve over the years?

Speaking from within the computer industry, whilst it's absolutely certain that computer technology will evolve, it's impossible to predict how it will evolve. Thus, we inevitably predict the future based on what we have now. When CDs were invented, most personal computers didn't come with hard drives, let alone hard drives that could hold the contents of 1000 CDs and fit in your pocket.

I remember seeing an ad in a computer magazine from around the time of the invention of the CD that predicted the future of personal computer hard drives. It was probably a Seagate ad. As I (vaguely) recall, it was touting the enormous capacity of the then-massive state-of-the-art 10 megabyte hard drive, which (speculated the ad) in ten years (1992-ish) might hold as much 20 megabytes, and by 2002 might -- if we're really lucky, and much science fiction comes true -- hold a whopping 30 megabytes of data.

We simply have no idea what future technology will be.

 

[sgmlaw]

Not only is physically-contained media fading, all locally-owned media is as well. Soon, music will just be another streaming subscription, like netflix or prime. For many, it already is. I refuse to go there, as you are then at their future mercy on availability. Once netflix dropped Rockford and Columbo, I dropped them.

I only handle a CD long enough to rip it to HDD. The CD is then retained in storage as proof of purchase. We have not a functioning audio CD player in the house; it is all streamed locally now. With the emphasis on LOCAL.

And I will never give up my vinyl. Red book never even came close. Even 24-bit audio doesn’t sound quite as good. Fortunately, the kids have started to take a liking to vinyl, and some old classics are being re-pressed again. I still get a smile spinning up my vinyl deck, every time.

 

[vwestlife]

Speaking from within the computer industry, whilst it's absolutely certain that computer technology will evolve, it's impossible to predict how it will evolve.

However, at the end of this TV program from 1982, they did have an accurate prediction:

"The Compact Disc may well rule the roost, at least until someone perfects a method of putting Beethoven's 9th on a silicon chip. Don't laugh -- I'm assured that that day, in fact, is not too far off..."