Friday, February 5th, 2010...11:06 am
CD’s blog posts in yo mouth
Yesterday I went to an actual record store, FYE, to purchase a CD. It had to be purchased in person because I was giving it as a gift, and I can’t say which CD, in case my mom is reading this (she’s not).
Normally just the threat of having to walk to a store is enough to keep me buying online, but I was equally annoyed by the price. One CD, $19. How does that make sense? How is this store still in business? The first thing everyone does when they get a CD anyway is rip it to their iPod. Even if you don’t have an iPod, you could just download it and burn it for half the price.
And I’m not factoring all the costs in here. Here is what my breakdown looks like:
In-Person Purchasing:
Album: $19
Extra Train Fare: $1.75
Opporunity Cost @ $28/hr: $14
Total Cost: $34.75
Online Purchasing:
Album: $10
Opportunity Cost @ $28/hr: $2.33
Total Cost: $12.33
I thought about telling my cashier that I wouldn’t be buying this from them if I wasn’t giving it as a gift, but she was nice and probably in highschool and wouldn’t have cared anyway. And I didn’t want to be a whinny old man.
Is the age of in-person music stores ending? How long it be before this happens with music and video games? Boxers or briefs?
2 Comments
February 5th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
At the FYE by my house they have a sign in the window saying that all cds are 9.99 which makes it more economical. But I too always wondered how they could stay in business charging 19 for a cd.
I’m still the type of person who would prefer to have the actual cd than getting it on itunes and burning a cd. Sometimes the mp3s alone are just too informal and insubstantial. I like the artwork and graphics and all that, so albums have sentimental value to me. I also like having the physical library of cds even though it takes up a lot of space. I’d say I’d put a limit of $12-13 bucks for an actual cd. If it’s any more, I’ll just buy it on itunes.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
The music industry is really operating on a dead (way past dying) business model. Trent Reznor speaks extensively about this. Like it or not, music is essentially free, so why not try and work with consumers? There is no reason actual CD’s can’t cost 10$. That amount seems reasonable for an online purchase, even though production costs are dropping dramatically, we should see lower music prices all around. 19$? thats frikkin ridiculous.
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