The next level was reached when it took nothing but a standard PC and a microphone (if required) to render an entire production. The software that emulated the previously needed pieces of gear came mostly for free thanks to piracy. Therefore, production costs practically hit zero and the record sales you needed in order to sustain a release fell almost to the cost of the manufacturing of the records themselves (with a few bucks for promotion). At that point, at least in dance music, sales figures of just around 5,000 physical units were considered a “hit,” whereas a bit earlier it would’ve required a few hundred thousand units. Many soon realized that even the expense of pressing up records or CDs was not really necessary. A digital download has no costs at all. The logical outcome was distribution that granted any piece of music total availability, with the downside of being the most inefficient way of distribution ever: what should I download when there are five billion files to choose from? Whom should I bless with my attention? Do I have any attention to spare?
I've run up against this problem a few times, with my iPod and with Netflix streaming- with a nearly literally endless supply of 'free' content, what do you do with it?
Musically, I was driven back to the comfort of the vinyl album. Cinematically, this conundrum is what fuels the wide general interest in my various Neflix streaming suggestion lists. I also think it's fueled the wildfire growth of Pandora, where you pick a general theme and their listeners fill out the station with stuff they suspect you'll like.
Most people don't have time to sift through all of anything, they need some form of curated experience to help them narrow things down. The convenience of Netflix is what killed Blockbuster, not its mammoth advantage in available content.
It's a good article, check it out even though it's long.
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