Your article headline is confused and misleading: streaming has had almost no effect on physical media sales - physical media sales have basically stabilised for the last 2 years. What streaming IS doing is causing the death of downloads (not physical sales). The old download age is coming to an end.
The market is shifting into two forms:
a) The STREAMING market for those who value CONVENIENCE over quality. This is wiping out the download market. Apple doesn't even sell iPods anymore.
b) The PHYSICAL market for those who want ownership, COLLECT, and value QUALITY (CD resolution or hi-res (e.g. SACD), and vinyl)
While there are hi-res download formats, their sales are a trifle, they cost more than SACDs, and while it may become possible to stream in CD quality or better as a default (without requiring specialist providers), the fact is that 99% of streamed data is low-res lossy data at about 1/8th the data throughput of CD, because most of the streaming market simply does not care: the model is all about convenience.
Your article headline is confused and misleading: streaming has had almost no effect on physical media sales - physical media sales have basically stabilised for the last 2 years. What streaming IS doing is causing the death of downloads (not physical sales). The old download age is coming to an end.
The market is shifting into two forms:
a) The STREAMING market for those who value CONVENIENCE over quality. This is wiping out the download market. Apple doesn't even sell iPods anymore.
b) The PHYSICAL market for those who want ownership, COLLECT, and value QUALITY (CD resolution or hi-res (e.g. SACD), and vinyl)
While there are hi-res download formats, their sales are a trifle, they cost more than SACDs, and while it may become possible to stream in CD quality or better as a default (without requiring specialist providers), the fact is that 99% of streamed data is low-res lossy data at about 1/8th the data throughput of CD, because most of the streaming market simply does not care: the model is all about convenience.
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