Interesting blog post: "The iTunes Effect and the Future of Content".

Pretty much the gist is that consumers are now only buying hit singles (online) which is killing album sales, which in turn hurts record companies, making them no able to invest in as many new bands, and the ones they do invest in aren't doing as well because - surprise - instead of buying their whole album consumers are only buying their one hit single.

On the flip side - and this is as a consumer and not an economist - digital distribution makes it a whole lot easier to get an album (or single) from some band a half a world away. Because in the olden days (you know, eight years ago) if your local record store didn't stock a specific kind of music then you just didn't get the tunes.

Obviously the Tower Records and Virgin Megastores weren't meeting consumers demands, because both are broke and gone - relics from a long ago age.

I'm torn on the issue, obviously, I really do care for efficiency and value, but on the other hand I remember so many fun days in Boston buzzing between the three or four used CD shops between Kenmore and Newbury looking for a CD - and then, if all else failed, stopping at Newbury Comics or Tower (yes, back then it was Tower Records on the corner of Newbury and Mass Ave) to buy it from the man (if they even stocked it). That act of discovery - what CDs are next to other CDs? Are they similar? - is so much greater than clicking 'iTunes Genius' and letting some algorithm tell you that Reel Big Fish is like Suburban Legends.

So my thesis? Kids today. They don't know what they're missing.

Labels: HBR, HBS, iTunes