Interesting Tim O'Reilly article.

From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Fri Dec 13 01:21:01 2002

> > I became dubious as soon as he trotted out the "sample-then-buy" myth.
> > While
> > this argument might not have been laughable 4-5 years ago before CD
> > burners were cheap and widespread, it's preposterous today.
>
> Why is that? Five years ago, when a friend would make me a copy of a CD
> and I liked it, I would go to the record store and buy one. Today, I do
> the same thing.
>
> I'm sure that not everyone does that, but presumably not everyone did it
> five years ago either.
>
You are a rare breed of a bygone age. The college market, for example, a prior
mainstay of music sales, is largely gone. At most campus dorms you can get any
current album burned by a fellow student for $1.00 plus media. And this is what
they do. Why? Well, the money, bolstered by the fact that college campuses are
infected by a "nothing is ever really wrong" moral relativism where only a fool
would pay an extra $10 for the real thing.

Five years ago you probably had a job, disposable income, your friend could
afford a $500 burner with media at $2 per CD, and you didn't mind waiting for a
burn at 2X. Given the costs, I doubt there were that many burners at colleges
then, and even fewer people in the burning biz.

-W
Received on Fri Dec 13 2002 - 01:21:01 GMT