Walt at Random

What year did downloaded music start outselling CDs/vinyl?

Very short post, with the heart of it in the title above, so as to encourage FriendFeed participation.

This is a test of your digital awareness. Without looking it up, try to answer that one question:

In what year did downloaded music (iTunes, etc.) start outselling music-on-containers (CDs, vinyl, etc.), worldwide?

Comments will remain open until Saturday, July 3, after which I’ll comment on the responses.

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The apparent answer: According to the sources I’ve seen, the answer is “2011, probably.”

Which is also to say: It hasn’t happened yet.

So Davin’s right, Stephen’s close enough, and John’s…not so much.

This work by Walt Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 7:24 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “What year did downloaded music start outselling CDs/vinyl?”

1. Stephen Francoeur Says:
   July 1st, 2010 at 7:57 am

   This year?

2. Davin Says:
   July 1st, 2010 at 8:58 am

   I’m pretty sure they haven’t yet.

3. John Klima Says:
   July 1st, 2010 at 12:40 pm

   I will blindly say 2008. No real reason, just picking a year.

4. walt Says:
   July 3rd, 2010 at 8:46 am

   See change in post: Davin’s right, and sources say that it will probably happen next year (2011).

5. Davin Says:
   July 7th, 2010 at 11:35 am

   For the record, I’m relatively young (30) and still buy loads…LOADS of music in physical media (some vinyl, mostly CD). I’m versed in the various digital music distribution channels, both legitimate and not so-. I even subscribe to a monthly streaming “cloud” service (Rhapsody). But if I think I’m going to listen to a record more than 3 or 4 times, I’m probably going to end up buying it in a form I can hold. So I always laugh when I read articles that treat people who still buy physical media like Bigfoot – smelly and possibly mythical.

6. walt Says:
   July 8th, 2010 at 7:36 am

   Davin: I’m sure you’re not alone–probably not even close to it. The Simple Story–”digital sweeps away analog, inevitably, rapidly and wholly”–is almost always wrong, but it’s simple and compelling. I’m seeing lots of stories that say X will replace Y the way downloads replaced CDs, always assuming that this has already happened and is pretty much universal.