Smart Money's recent article, Ten things not to buy in 2010, listed the who's who of soon-to-be-obsolete consumer products. Among them: CDs, DVDs, and newspapers.
Newspapers, I can understand, especially after seeing a comedian absolutely decimate the folks at the New York Times. (Though I do fully recognize their point that news gathering is expensive and dangerous. But that's veering off-topic a bit.)
But CDs and DVDs are obsolete? Why? Because, the article suggests, there are cooler, less expensive, more convenient alternatives like iTunes, Netflix, and movies on demand like Time Warner's and Verizon's service.
I'm not knocking any of these services, by the way. My wife loves her iTunes collection because of the huge variety she can find. Her parents are movie lovers and enjoy the convenience of Netflix (plus, they also use ClearPlay to get rid of all the nasty stuff in the movies). Not a thing wrong with these services, and many things right with them.
But, if I buy a CD, I can sell that CD when I'm done with it. I also can buy a used CD on eBay or in a pawn shop, paying only a fraction of the price that the first buyer paid. I'm pretty sure I can't do either of these things with an iTunes collection, even if neither I nor the seller/buyer retain copies of the songs. (Do you know the answer?)
Likewise, if I buy a DVD, I can sell that DVD when I'm done with it. I can also buy a used DVD for a fraction of the price that the first buyer paid. Netflix is a subscription. I pay for the right to borrow their DVDs, but I can't keep them. And Time Warner's and Verizon's service are essentially pay-per-view services.
If I were a business, I'd much rather take recurring payments than one-time payments. Why charge just once when you can charge again and again? It's the same reason why the Kindle model is so appealing. Why sell a paperback once — with full resale rights — when you can charge someone access to download the text of the paperback, and control it after it's downloaded?
But for me, I still see the value in actually owning something, free and clear except for a restriction on copying the content. Is ownership becoming obsolete? I don't think so. I like my CDs and DVDs, thank you very much!
I prefer to just use bittorrent. However, and this is a very big however, I DO buy CDs from my favorite independent artists. Except for the MC Lars / k.flay Single and Famous collab, which I paid Lars $3 for digital download. And then when I went to see them with Bowling For Soup, Lars gave me a free copy of k.flay’s latest CD, which was hilarious because he was the one that owed me free merch, not her.
Ownership isn’t the issue, it’s the primary material. Think about it. When you took a picture, you had the negative that needed to be interpreted to become a hard-copy picture. The same with movies and cellulose. Vinyl records were a direct capture of sound.
With the evolution of electronic mediums, you need more and more sophisticated devices to decode the media. Even CDs have evolved from relatively straightforward digitized sound to MP3 psychoacoustic representation and lossy compression. JPGs and MPP4s represent compressed images and movies, needing computers to interpret.
I don’t mind the electronic copies, I just want the hard copies to handle. Call me a geeky Luddite.
I’ll agree with you! I read that article too, and I thought that some of the things they were obsoleting were a little bit premature. I’ll add one more point: You can go to the public library and checkout a CD or DVD for free in most cases. I think it may be a while until libraries start offering MP3s or movies on demand.
I’m with you on this . . . i like to OWN a thing. LOL, I’m a BIG reader, reading nearly 100 books a year, and everyone tells me to get a Kindle, that I will save so much money and space in my house. But frankly, when I buy books, i tend to spend no more than $3 to $5 (buying mostly used) on each one, and I can resell them for cash or credit at used book stores. BOoks that I do spend full price on are ones that I want to own, to keep on my shelf as part of my personal library (and even then, I tend to find 40% Borders coupons). I can loan books to friends and family, re-sell them because it’s an object I can hold.
You can’t do any of that with a Kindle. Plus, spending $10 for a title that I can’t get something back on after I read it? It almost seems like a waste to me.
The Kindle is great for many people, . . . just not a match for me right now. 😉
I am very mixed on this. The convenience of an iPod while traveling cannot be beat. But I will take a hard copy book over a kindle any day!
I’m a net junkie, but I still enjoy reading an actual book. I also love my CDs and DVDs, especially since I canceled my cable subscription.
Kindle is not the same as a physical book. However, I think that you are missing the big picture. As devices like kindle and digital media players as becoming more mainstream the price of older content is going down dramatically. Websites are already giving away limited content for free and this should increase in the future. Overall when the digital revolution takes complete hold, people will have greater access to content while overall spending on content will be reduced.
Ditto on holding the product in your hand. I love seeing my collection of DVDs on a few shelves of a bookcase, next to the tv and dvd player. Along with my CDs, albums, tapes, on other shelves next to my stereo. And books, in other book shelves. I got to book sales at the libraries in town, as well as second hand places. I like to own my stuff. I make it a point to go to the stores that sell these things, than always buying on line. You pay taxes at the stores, and the stores pay taxes, which pay for things in your town or city. I guess that would be putting in the big picture.
On ebay and amazon you can buy the past hot sellers at a lower price. And donate the items to groups that use them to educate people who aren’t part of our traditional schools.
Nowaday, people like when you can storage a lot of stuff in small devices..
DVD and CD, in covers and so on, would be more and more left out. I dont think we have physical cd/dvd stores in 5-10years. It takes to much room, and people dont want that.
the simpler it is, the better!