too much typing—since 2003

1.18.2008

conceptual continuity

Record companies sometimes like to claim they were broadsided by the digital revolution - they're idiots if they believe that.

Plenty of people could see the future - maybe not exactly, but in certain respects accurately. I remember reading an article in Musician magazine in the early '90s suggesting that in the future, people would go to record stores not to buy pre-manufactured CDs, but to have CDs manufactured on demand for them via digital networks (clearly, the authors did not anticipate home CD burners).

Even more stunningly, here's Frank Zappa, in 1983, essentially modeling something rather similar to the iTunes Store (via Click Opera).

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