For those old enough to remember a different time, the changes in technology, shopping habits and its effect on the economy have been both fascinating and disconcerting. DVD was a nifty invention, but it would have been even niftier if was around thirty years ago, back when contemporary films that I now regard as indispensible were released on those bulky Laser Discs (and the studio, not mercurial filmmakers like George Lucas, had control of release decisions). However, I was still young when CDs appeared, so what would become the digital age of entertainment media wasn’t a complete surprise. Back in the day, if you wanted home entertainment beyond offerings on television, you went to the record or video rental store, and they were everywhere; not that television back then didn’t produce quality programming—talented writers and producers were in abundance, and some even had a sharp sense of the political and social times. Today, even with a hundred channels, I have a hard time finding anything to keep me from being bored, except on Sunday during the NFL season or when the History Channel has another five-hour block devoted to the Nazis. Too much television today is like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”—strip away all the techno wizardry, it’s mostly just bullshit; worse for an information-challenged populace, even with three cable news channels the only place where you can find in-depth news-gathering is on an occasional PBS’ “Frontline” special.
Anyways, the CD format was a sales-driver, because it didn’t merely replace vinyl, but drove people to replace their existing collection with what was regarded as a superior and more durable format (I have CDs 25 years old that still play like new; given my sloppy habits, vinyl would have no chance. There could be a half dozen different retailers specializing in records with several outlets in town; you could always count on Tower Records having virtually anything you were looking for, and some things you were not looking for staring you in the face. Music—and then video—sales were big business, and these stores kept a great many people employed.
It isn’t like that today. The digital era has gone electronic. All you have to do is go on a computer and there are hundreds or even thousands of online sellers (some more reputable than others), and if its ever been released, it is out there somewhere. You don’t have to drive or walk to a store anymore. Just type in the credit card number and your on easy street. You don’t have to actually have something in your hands that you have time to mull over whether or not you actually want to waste money on it; Amazon knows that, because it doesn’t allow people to cancel an order five minutes after you hit the “confirm” button. You don’t even have to purchase whole records anymore; just listen to a brief snippet of a list of songs and download the ones you think you like. But it’s actually even worse than that for product producers and sellers: you can download virtually anything you want for free, if you look hard enough.
According to a recent report by the RIAA, in 1991 there were 9,500 retail outlets dedicated to pre-recorded entertainment media; in 2006, the number had been reduced to 2,000—most of which were small specialty shops. Virtually all the major record chains, like Tower, Wherehouse, Sam Goody and others have gone bankrupt, are on-line only, or simply disappeared. In 2000, 785 million CD albums were still being sold, and the DVD format was in its third year, and videophiles like myself were eager to stock-up on favorite films; for a few years, every Tuesday I would head to Tower Records and find as many as ten new catalogue titles on sale that I “needed” to have. But purchasing dynamics would change dramatically within just a few years. Recordable CDs , mp3s, the internet and DVRs was one factor; by 2009, CD sales had fallen by nearly 50 percent, and most of those sales were made in Wal-Mart or Best Buy which had only a limited selection. Record store chains have also went south because of high CD prices; record companies justified the continuing high prices of CDs—almost alone among electronic media that has actually risen in price as it matured instead of declining—on making-up the difference in lost sales from piracy and illegal downloading. Yet it has given sweet deals to big-box retail outlets like Wal-Mart, which sells CDs at a discount because CDs (and DVDs) are not seen as a money-makers themselves, but because they generate foot traffic in areas where profit is made.
Another factor in the decline of both stores and sales was that the fact of mostly poor and uninspiring product being put out—and less of it, as if that is supposed to help sales. According to a Business Week story, Nathan Brackett of Rolling Stone magazine stated that “The music industry's [modus operandi] is to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. If they're throwing 20 percent less stuff out there, there's less chance something will stick.” So much of music these days is mindlessly repetitive (rap, hip-hop), ragingly derivative (country) or just plain dull (rock, pop), that whether something sticks or not is almost a matter of indifference, meaningless beyond simply being background noise. The same with DVDs; once movie studios started to curtail issuing back catalogue titles, true vidoephiles who were the mostly reliable customers simply curtailed their purchases because of the quizzical quality of current films (see above Pink Floyd reference).
In other words, record and movie producers don’t really care about finding out what the public really wants, outside the teen demographic. It is true that younger audiences with different “tastes” are almost completely immune to the effects of musical creativity, adult story-telling and quality writing; we can see this on MTV and VH1, where it is virtually impossible to find music anymore, and even on the so-called American Movie Classics channel, where it is almost impossible for a younger demographic to be exposed to actual classic vintage films. Almost all contemporary “entertainment” these days is mostly self-indulgent with little lasting emotional impact. So there is simply little worthy of expending limited funds on. In an article in the New York Times last year on the closing of the Virgin Megastore, one of the last large record stores in the city, one former customer admitted that though he liked to go to the record store, “I don’t really buy stuff from it, but it’s a really cool place.”
The record store is just one example of how what appears to be technological advancement also may have a net negative effect on employment and the economy. The newspaper business has been an obvious victim, as well as bookstores; there is a Border’s Books and a Barns and Nobles in downtown Seattle, but on most days they seem virtually empty. I don’t visit them much anymore, not because some of the employees are conceited and rude, but because more likely than not they don’t have what I’m looking for anyways. I can order books or DVDs in the store, but why do I need to waste time walking to a store if I can simply go online on my own computer?
Closing these stores, naturally, means job losses. The question then is if on-line retailing is replacing those lost jobs. It is hard to pin down statistics on that subject; retail sales make-up a little over $4 trillion of the GDP, of which between 3 and 4 percent is labeled “e-commerce.” Music and films would naturally be more susceptible than big-ticket items, since people would prefer to “inspect” such items before they purchase them. But having once worked in an apparel warehouse, it is my impression that even doubling of sales only requires modest modifications in employee hiring numbers, if any at all. This is just one reason why the economy must adapt by diversifying into uncharted waters--like green energy--in order to create new employment opportunities.
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