[sc:entertainment-category ]Sometimes we can forget how quickly things change in the technology industry, five years ago if you wanted to buy the latest music from an artist, you went out to your local music store and bought the CD.
Three years ago you probably went to you local electronics mega store to pick up the CD.
Today you download it.
But what happens when the album you want isn’t available in your chosen online store?
iTunes is pervasive in the music industry now, but I will not use it, Apple’s closed ecosystem and draconian rules should scare the bejesus out of everyone.
A Canadian band I listen too released the current album last November, through their online store and iTunes. I’ve been waiting for hmvdigital.ca to add it to their catalog but even to this day that has not happened.
I finally broke down and was going to order it through their online store, but I refuse to pay $12 in shipping for a $10 CD 
.
And so I was resigned to waiting for it to become available somewhere else online or until I had a few more things to pick up from Amazon to get the free shipping.
Then one day, I was in Futureshop, picking up an Xbox Gold membership (the subject of another post when I get around to it) when I walked by the CD aisle . It was one of those “duh, I should have had a v-8” moments as I realized that while online was king these days, some stores do still exist .
$12 later and I had the CD.
You can certainly tell how much digital distribution has changed the industry, Futureshop used to have aisle of CD’s, now it’s down to just one and most of that aisle was empty. I wouldn’t doubt it will be down to just a third of an aisle by the end of their year with just the top 10 CD’s.
