Extend the graph of vinyl sales back just a little beyond the convenient of 1991 and it’s clear where that format is headed. Go back just one year, to 1990, and total vinyl LP sales were 38 million. Getting excited about 1.88 million vinyl LP sales is something, relative to a specific time period but it’s an awfully tiny share of the market. As you said, “small business”. Add in the fact that those 1.88 million pieces were shared between a dozen or more companies and then ponder that the two million piece sales mark was a respectable hit for a single title from one artist but by no means a blockbuster a mere twenty years ago and you have, perhaps, some better perspective on vinyl sales. Keep in mind that even during the early boom years of the CD vinyl sales were in the hundreds of millions. In the three years from 2005 to 2008, digital download sales went from (as charted by the RIAA) zero to over 50 million.

Vinyl is cool and there is a case to be made for the album format as it relates to some music. The idea however that vinyl is resurgent in any real sense of the word is silly. At least at this point and I would tend to think, forever. LPs died for a reason and that reason is usually ignored by the more romantic amongst us who are either fans of the medium or simply misinformed. It doesn’t surprise me that maybe 50,000 or 60,000 people still buy vinyl but again, that’s very small potatoes in the context of the US market.

And make no mistake the public walked away from the vinyl LP format because the vast majority of people felt they were served better by different technology. And in most senses, I would tend to agree with them.

So when discussing perceptions versus reality I would gently suggest that perhaps the vinyl LP example did not demonstrate what you intended.

Any judgement or classification needs a benchmark.

I don’t have much of a horse in this race. I do think “downloadable everything” is being wildly oversold, and that “incorporeal is always better” is even more oversold–I’d say “digital is always better,” but Blu-ray is just as digital as downloads. If I’m wrong about the likely survival and moderate success of Blu-ray, I’m wrong; I’ve been wrong before.

Who knows? Maybe American broadband will magically, suddenly increase in speed by a factor of 10 and the newly-enlightened cable and other providers won’t attempt to gouge on price or control usage, and providers of digital data will abandon DRM. (But can’t you catch flu from those flocks of pigs flying overhead?)

Several libraries responded that they prefer to focus on downloadable digital media rather than the new disc formats. Will be interesting to follow over the next two-five years.