I remember the days of browsing through stacks and stacks of CD’s at Tower Records or Blockbuster Music. The first CD I ever purchased was Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth. I’m not sure how much that dates me. If you are feeling nostalgic you can check out the music of my life to find out more about me. Even back about 15 years ago, you could still browse through tons of CD’s at places like Best Buy. Now, purchasing CD’s at Best Buy or Target will become a thing of the past. Starting July 1st, both Target and Best Buy have announced that they will no longer sell CD’s in their stores.
The writing has been on the wall for this shift for a while, as the CD section of each store has continued to shrink over the last several years. Most users are opting for services like Google Play Music or Spotify to listen to music. Not only can you listen to the latest music immediately, it’s usually included with your subscription if you already pay for one. You can also purchase music directly from Google Play or Apple to use on all of your devices.
I asked on my Instagram stories if anyone still purchases physical CD’s anymore, and the response was overwhelming no (although there were a few holdouts that still purchase CD’s at the store).
Now that the CD’s are going the way of cassette tapes, one has to wonder how long it will be before the stores stop selling DVDs and Blu-Rays as well. With music, most of the streaming services are able to access just about any song, but the subscription services for movies like Netflix and Hulu do not have all of the available movies, so it stands to reason people will still be purchasing movies for a while.
Even though the subscription services don’t have access to every movie, you can typically purchase movies that aren’t available through a service like Vudu, Google Play, Amazon or Apple. Some people might feel like trusting a digital service with your movie or music library can be risky. What if the service goes under? What if you don’t have access to the internet? I feel pretty confident in my digital library at the moment especially with Movies Anywhere keeping track of your licenses.
Just like most of the record stores have gone out of business, it makes sense for the big box retailers to get out of the physical media game. If customers were buying them, they would sell them.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using the links.
Add Comment