Re: CD Prices and Inflation

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 1:14 AM 7/26/96, jim bell wrote:
>At 05:06 AM 7/26/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

>>So, while I "wish" CD prices were even lower, I'm paying a lot less in
>>"real dollars" for more music today than I was paying 15 years ago or 30
>>years ago.
>
>I think you're trying to hide a 5-year effect by immersing it in 30 years of
>change.  Yes, we've had inflation, but the large spurt of post-Vietnam
>inflation was basically over by about 1983, when the CD was introduced.   At

No, I'm not "trying" to hide anything. What I said is what I meant: CDs
today offer more music/dollar than LPs did in 1967. And, in 1975. And, in
1983.

(In 1983 I bought my last "audiophile" LP, a direct-to-disk
half-speed-mastered album that cost me something like $12.)

The complaint that CD prices have not fallen faster than some would like,
since 1983, is a different kettle of fish from what my point was, that CD
prices in 1983 or in 1996 are a better "deal" than LPs were in the period I
described.

As for prices not dropping, if customers stopped buying, prices would drop
very rapidly. That they are not, and that "mega-stores" are sprouting up
all over  place tells us that CD sales are exploding.

Finally, and most convincingly, nothing in U.S. law prevents Jim Bell or
anyone else from setting up his own CD company and undercutting the prices
of the Biggies.

Hey, if you think you can supply CDs to customers for a lot less money, go
for it!

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
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