What are the politics behind the prices of CDs being so high. The industry seems to be in some sort of denial?

Question

DVDs, plasma TVs, you name it all went way down in price over the years. CDs did not. As far as I can tell a new CD still goes for the outrageous price of 15-18 dollars.

Answer 1

The records industry on a whole thier heads up thier proverbial butts. Times have changed. The value of music is not what it used to be. There is free music everywhere we go. People can take 1000's of songs with them on thier ipods everywhere they go. People are simply not willing to pay 18 dollars for a CD with 15 songs on it, 10 of which probbaly stink. The record companies, and the RIAA, rather than trying to adapt to a changing marketplace have taken a ludicrous step. They are suing people who don't want to pay for thier music. Most people were never planning on buying the CD that contains the one song that they downloaded. The recording industry thinks that they are losing money because of online piracy. I don't think that's true. They are losing money because people no longer want to buy the product that they are selling. They need to adapt and change to a new electronic world. The future of the industry will be subscription based services where you pay a monthly fee to have access to a compendium of music. There are already services like this out there. When they finally catch on why will anyone buy a CD?
If the recoding industry doesn't wake up, they are going to go the way that print newspapers are currently going. But even they are starting to offer richer online content. I guess the RIAA really is buyring it's head in the sand.

Answer 2

Yeah, but who cares? That's what MP3s are for. I've heard tell that many people nowadays buy the CD, rip it, and return it -- those who bother to walk into a record store at all. (Not that I'd ever do such a thing!!)

I'd say that's pretty cheap!