even today over 80% of all music sales are still the redbbook cd. of the digitally delivered portion, most is not an entire album, but bought by track. just consumer choices...nothing more. as a collector of cd's and vinyl, its as much about the 'touch' as the tune.....the things you collect reflect who you are.
Future of CD's - Hard drive based music
The big change/future I have found is the use of all digital music - I havent used my CD player since christmas - I got a Mac Mini and ripped all my CDs to the harddrive lossless formated and got a decent DAC - I Ripped only the songs I liked and I now have over 4 days worth of music I enjoy - no more getting up changing CD's,I can instantly play any song from my entire library of favorites. I use my Sony Hi-def TV as the monitor so I can web browse while listening to music. The sound quality is as good as CD's as far as I can tell - I wonder how long it will be before lossless songs are offered online - this will completely kill the need for CD's for me.