There Is No CD Revival

If everyone listened to the same amount of music in proportion to the amount they're paying it wouldn't matter which way the royalties were calculated, as the artists would get the same amount either way. Money is fungible, so it doesn't matter whether they get your subscription fee or a much smaller slice of all the subscriptions as long as you listening to their music leads to them getting at least $7.50 extra that month.

The discrepancy is in the fact that those who listen to less music on a flat-rate plan pay more per track, which is not accounted for in the "percentage of worldwide plays" metric. If there are, say, an average of 100 tracks played per subscriber per month, and you play 1000 tracks from your favorite indie artist (even non-exclusively), they're actually doing better with this "worldwide plays" metric than they would otherwise—each play is worth about 7.5¢ ($7.50 for 100 plays), so they'd get $75 based on your activity. You contribute more plays but not more money compared to other subscribers, which means other subscribers are subsidizing your music preferences. However, if you only listen to 10 tracks per month, even if they're all from the same artist, the situation is more like what you described, with most of your subscription going to support artists you don't listen to. In this case they'd only get 75¢ of your $7.50.

So to optimize the royalties to your favorite artists, the real question is: Do you (and other fans of indie music) listen to more music than the average subscriber, or less?

That's also dependent on your headphones. I might have shitty earbuds today, but in the future when I might have 3D "puts the sound directly into your brain" phones, I might tell the difference

>I think while CDs (and DVDs, and Blu-rays) are still being sold, they should 100% shift to carboard packaging instead of plastic.

Hard disagree.

I sold my large collection of records recently, for 2 reasons.

1. Because I realized I hadn't listened to effectively any of them in the past 5 years, across 2 house moves. I'm leaving on travel soon and may work abroad in the future, so better to liquidate now than later.

2. My entire collection had that "vintage" stink, aka mold/mildew/etc. I had mixed old and new records together, which effectively tainted the outer cardboard of the records. This caused me a serious amount of stress and anxiety (which is a separate problem to resolve) to the extent that I rushed selling the records to a record store (which I have minor regrets about, blog write-up to come on this all).

This all to say, while I really do dislike how plastic dependent we've become in society, from everything like fruits and plastic bags, I LOVE that CDs come in jewelcases for 3 distinct reasons

1. The plastic CD case protects the CD, and the inner paper booklet, from damage and other external factors, if stored properly. Also, cardboard cases for CDs often don't include inner booklet notes, which is disappointing. Cardboard CD cases are less resilient to damage as well.

I personally need some plastic archival bags (and if you can recommend some, please do), because I want to avoid my CDs coming to a similar fate as my vinyl. I found a few that caught a bit of a stink recently, and hurriedly cleaned the exterior cases (another benefit).

2. The plastic cases help with management and organization of the physical collection very easily, as every case is effectively the same size. While there are some slimline CD releases, and of course cardboard or double/deluxe CD releases, for single CD releases they all conform to the same size, making require space estimates and stacking very convenient to do.

3. Extremely easy to replace if damaged, dirty, smelly, etc. You can buy new blank CD cases so easily, and if you can't find an exact replacement, similar cases could be found. This is one reason I dislike vinyl cardboard covers: if the cover is damaged or stinky/moldy/etc enough, you're screwed. Throw it out, but good luck finding just a cover replacement. Whereas with a CD, you can get a digital copy of the inner booklet and CD one way or another, and remake a new physical copy if desired. Obviously, that's done for personal consumption only.

By extension of that last note, I want to say I love CDs for the fact that they're robust, reliable, DRM-free (excluding previous cases), high quality, and identical every play.

/end my input /start personal rant

Having the power to own your media physically and digitally is another benefit (by ripping the CD). I also love that many CDs come with the inner booklet which often contains interviews, lyrics, bonus photos, or other fun content that wouldn't be found in a vinyl release. I do admit that vinyl releases are beautiful with the large print 12" covers, but how many records do you realistically prop up on a shelf somewhere?

We moved off VHS tapes to DVD, and Blu-Ray has been around for years now, and yet despite that DVDs are still produced. I don't forsee any kind of death of CD or DVD in the near future, especially as more streaming services pull back or move media in and out of their catalogues; increasing costs don't help either.

Also separate side note, the case for a vinyl record being an involved process I agree with. I would say that limiting CD purchases per month could be viewed in a similar fashion, buying 1-3 a month and listening to each through.

Keep on collecting!

I'm worried about bandcamp.com after being purchased by Epic Games. BC's terms of service and privacy policy were updated to reflect this change, mostly legal ownership and related stuff, but I feel they're going to do the regular acquisition process: wait a year or so, make a detrimental change to the service, piss off a lot of people.

LPs are not higher quality.