Buying Music
How barbaric! And in this day and age when it’s well known to be free? But there really isn’t any reason not to — it’s not restricted to a particular manufacturer or device, it’s high-quality and you get album booklets and often more. I still hear arguments otherwise though — “the artists get so little of what you pay”, or “a physical CD is better” — but some dollars are better than no dollars when it comes to the artist, and if a physical CD is better, then why pirate in the first place?
The only valid argument, really, is one of accessibility: record companies still don’t seem to understand that the Internet is global. Often I’ve searched for an artist or album and have been told it’s “not available in my country yet”, whether this be in an online shopfront or in a bricks-and-mortar store. The moment they can get past that (self-imposed, I might add) hurdle we might be making headways. It’s hard to compete with free, maybe — but if you can offer a superior product you just maybe can get people to buy it.
