THE PROBLEM WITH SELLING YOUR CD
COLLECTION.
Several years ago, along with everything
else, the music industry collapsed. It imploded in on it’s self and changed beyond
all recognition. Many see the demise of the music industry as directly linked
to iTunes and the digitalization of music. This has however, made it more
accessible and more convenient. If the 60s and 70s (That’s the 1960s and 70s to
anyone in the generation growing up using a computer) was the generation of discovery and the 80s and 90s was the me
generation, then the 21st Century has become the generation of
convenience. ‘I want it and I want it now’ Can I get it faster than that even?
The problem with, ‘I want it now and I can’t
be bothered to wait’ is that there is always a price to pay, it’s either cash
or trade and you usually give something up along the way. When it came to the
music industry the price was quality. In order to make it possible to download
a track or an album from the net, it was required that the size of the file
become smaller and in order to do that it was compressed, so much so that the
quality of the music fell off. How else could you get a 1000 songs on an ipod?
This was not solely limited to the music
industry either, this need to downsize has become rampant throughout our lives in the last few years, and along with it has come the need for quicker and more
efficient service and this has been required to be executed with less and less
people and resources. So much so, that there has been a drop off in the quality of product and
service over many industries. In the eighties it became commonplace to use the
labour force to balance the books. This was the first time that it became
common practice and the fallout from this has been devastating. Sadly we have
never regained the days when people had a value and that value translated to
quality.
It seemed like a good idea in the
beginning, we could download our favourite song or album faster than you could
say ‘DOWNLOAD’ and there we had it the convenience, right there on our phones
and our tablets, at home on our laptops and our desktops. In fact it became
obsolete to have a CD collection at all. Why? Why have one when it could all be
uploaded onto your technology of choice? Not only that we could download a whole album in a few minutes.
In a moment of madness I allowed my wife to
talk me into uploading all my music onto my mac and selling off all of my CDs.
I had two or three hundred CDs and we were a little short on cash at the time
(it was right in the middle of the recession). What I noticed right away though
was that the quality I got from the upload and a pair of desktop speakers was
in fact pretty crap in comparison to the CDs and a descent CD player, which
also was auctioned off due to not really needing one.
I saw this as a model for my life, is it
better to have ten shirts that I could get overnight or five at the same price
from a good store? The problem is, if I order from the net it’s there next day
and I don’t need to fight the traffic or find a place to park. I don’t need to
try the shirt on or deal with the bad service I get from the clerk who doe not
want to do the job he is in because they are bitter about being downsized after
spending 6 years in University. The thing is though, I enjoy that process and it’s
like anything else, I will get from it what I chose to put into it.
I like to shop at the Butchers instead on
Tescos. (Who doesn't)? At the Butchers I get to have a conversation, many times with others in
the shop. I get to ask questions of people who love their profession and I get
a better quality of product. Do I pay a little more? Of course I do. But what I
get in return is immeasurable both in quality of product and the life
experience.
I love music and it saddens me to think
that I wholesaled my CD collection in a moment of weakness when in reality I
could have saved the money by not purchasing my Starbucks coffee everyday. No
offence to Starbucks, the coffee is great. I feel that sometimes we wholesale
our lives in order that we don’t have to be inconvenienced so much.
Live Passionately, Ask Why?
