A Little Hypocrisy?

I shop for audio gear on Audiogon to save 30-60% on my purchases. I shop for music at BMG, Columbia House, the multiple annual sales at Streetside records where everything is 20% off, new releases when they're 20% off, Amazon when you can find used, etc. etc. In other words, I don't pay 15 to 20 dollars a CD. I'd guess my average price per CD is 10 to 11 dollars. I only complain a bit, and about both, but I'd say that retail price on CDs is just as ficticious for me as retail price on audio equipment.

Another thing I love about the music industry is how flexible they are (tongue firmly in cheek!). I work in an industry where demand is down, the market is somewhat saturated, customers are under cost pressures and competitors help to force pricing down. It's tough as hell, but we actually try to adapt - come up with better value propositions, lower cost of delivery , lower cost of ownership, etc. etc.

The music industry watches their sales go down and just whines and threatens. Guess what guys - you might not be able to get $17 a CD any more! You'd probably sell more if they cost $12 a pop or (gasp) $9.99. I don't know why it costs $17 retail to get CDs into the marketplace, but you're not immune to the same oversupply, added value proposition expectations, reduced costs pressures that basically every other industry is going through.

Needless to say, I don't have a lot of sympathy for their plight.

Bomarc - my point, at least, is that the music industry is the one complaining about the injustices of the marketplace instead of adapting. I have adapted equally on both the purchases of high-end audio gear and audio software - I would say that my system cost me, overall, about 60% of list price. My software has cost me, overall, about 60% of list price.

My complaint is one of buying 200-250 CDs a year legally, not downloading or copying other peoples' CDs at all, and then watching this industry lump me in with their problems. They can't ween themselves from the cash cows they've created but they're mad that the cash cows aren't as lucrative as they used to be. I am representative of their market, as many others on this board are. They're not doing a damn thing to better serve me and, worse, are working hard to lessen the value proposition.

Yes, we can all stop buying. I will return any CD that has copy protection on it.

The original premise of the thread was that we shouldn't complain about the price of CDs if we're not complaining about the price of high-end gear. If people weren't complaining about the price of high-end gear, they wouldn't be coming to Audiogon to shop used from relative strangers for the purposes of saving money. I think we, as a community, feel the price of both are out of whack, at least to an extent.

Interesting points T_bone. My answers:

1. No idea and no real interest in figuring it out. There will be music and I will listen to music. How it gets created / distributed is really not much of an issue for me as this is my past-time, not my livelihood. If it were my livelihood, I'd be very interested, and I'd do something to make sure it was very profitable and that I could employ a quality workforce.

2. The idea conveyed is an interesting question, but I think the ratios are wrong. Some of us might buy twice as much, but the real question is "would lower prices raise demand," which I find hard to argue any answer but "Yes, they would." Could the music industry change a 5% annual decline into a 5% annual growth in sales by merely lowering prices? I'll just say that a significant price decrease (and 50% would be a gigantic price decrease - I'm talking 20%), would be a key step in a plan to turn music sales around.

3. No, I agree that postage is one of the best bargains going.

4. A very interesting question, because it's another entertainment industry that doesn't have a clue, wants to blame everybody but themselves, etc. Over my life, I have been a huge BB fan, but I've all but given the game up. I haven't bought a ticket in years, because the sport is so screwed up. You call off your mid-season classic before it's over (and send everybody off to kiss their sister), you've created the most unequal "playing field" in sports with well over 1/2 the teams being "out of it" before the first pitch of the season, four hour games, and you're talking about folding teams. All the while, the people at the top (players and management) are grabbing every $ they can get their hands on regardless of the long-term health of the game / industry. All they need to do now is to figure out a copy-protection scheme for the morning boxscores and charge to view them, and tell me that I'm illegal if I let somebody else steal a glance at my copy and they'll have caught up. Actually, they're ahead of the music industry with me, as I've already written them off (though I am, for the first time in a decade, actually watching what is destined to be one of the lowest rated WS in history, as they accidently got a really interesting one)