> How CDs and music downloads died
A piece of analysis over on Rolling Stone:
As streaming gives the music industry its biggest profits in a decade, the CD business continues to plunge. CD sales have fallen 80 percent in the past decade, from roughly 450 million to 89 million. [...] Downloads – once seen as the CD’s replacement – have plummeted 58 percent since peaking in 2012, their profits now even smaller than physical sales.The article's called 'The End of Owning Music', but that's just editorial hyperbole. The content reports a healthy continued growth in vinyl, and settles on the idea that people are streaming while out and about but listening to LPs at home. But the headline's probably true - the general trend is towards access rather than ownership.