Without getting into the issue of sonics of streaming vs. CD vs. analog, it is interesting to speculate on why different people are attracted to different media.
Streaming of course is the clear winner with 85% of the revenue. Now members here care about sound, but most of the public is more interested in ease of use, portability, etc. Streaming gained most of its popularity when it generally wasn’t capable of good sound. It’s only been the last decade or so when great sounding products emerged as alternative to mp3. Streaming loses a lot of the accoutrement of physical media, namely album covers and liner notes.
It’s been observed that most lp sales are to people who don’t have a worthy playback system (check out threads in the analog section). People spend $40 on lps and play them—if they play them at all- on rigs that cost perhaps twice as much. The relatively few serious analog users post in places like Agon but are the distinct minority of vocal consumers. So why do (generally younger generations than the average member here) they buy? Because of the accoutrements, the way a tone arm looks sinking into a black mass of vinyl, etc. This generation came of age during the heyday of CD, and vinyl is like getting a classic 1950s automobile.
I was in my late 20s when CDs started their ascendancy and I thought they were pretty cool. Having the disc spin, being read by a laser, the dynamic range, longer playing times, lack of surface noise instantly won me over. The downside was the accoutrement-there was still album covers and liner notes, but they were shrunken in size, and it just wasn’t the same. I would nostalgically hang out in used lp stores years before I purchased a turntable.
What about streaming and accoutrement? Yeah, you can click a link and go to a site, but it’s not fun.
And this is why the younger, non audiophile generation has embraced lps, because they crave something that streaming isn’t giving them, and lps accoutrements are cooler than CD.
Eventually some may realize that the sound of lps on their limited playback systems sucks. And they look for better analog replay, but decent analog requires some expense and labor. Decent CD replay, however, can be had relatively cheaply.
A lot of CD issues now stress the accoutrement-big boxes with cool repackaging and actual readable books, usually with lots of photos from concerts or studio shots. People are buying them, if not in numbers like the heyday of CD, at least in enough quantity that the manufacturers realize there is still a market for CD replay