I personally would hate if music goes to all digital only but I'm not too certain I see it happening in the near future. I can see brick and mortar stores dropping them or at least further reducing the space they have available, but I would imagine they'd still be available online and such. I personally still purchase a ton of CD's yearly and it is the format I generally prefer (I also occasionally buy vinyl but I tend to reserve that more for special releases and favorite bands). I understand the conveniences of digital but if I'm paying for something I want something that's physical that I can touch and look at. Not just a bunch of files on my hard drive/mp3 player. I like having the cases to display and artwork/liner notes to look over. Unfortunately I realize that I'm probably in the minority these days.

Labels aren't going to abandon CD overnight. What will happen is a gradual emphasis away from the format to downloads and other forms. The labels would love to keep selling CDs, but mainstream retailers are carrying less and less stock with each quarter. Check the amazing shrinking section of your local Wal-Mart.

More like 'has been happening over the last few years'.

I can see them switching to a gift card way of distribution for the major artists, to help ease non-tech people into the digital world.

My biggest issue with this whole thing is that the major music download sellers aren't offering lossless files. We don't have to trade quality for convenience. If I can download a 10GB game from Steam for $5-10 when they have a big sale, I think they can spare the bandwidth for a 300MB lossless album.

I understand that compressed files have their place for portable devices. But if they're expecting me to pay "full price" for music, they can offer it in lossless.

My feeling exactly.

Record companies are making a big mistake by ignoring the audiophiles. People like me are the ones who will keep buying CDs, but they continue to overprice many of them (putting stores that charged list price out of business) and a lot of current albums are still being mixed with that stupid "loudness war" nonsense, where the dynamic range is intentionally killed. They should make CD packaging more interesting too- let someone get creative. I've never liked jewel cases- since 1985 I've learned they're among the most breakable items in the universe.

I won't pay for a download- if those become the only way to get music I'll find a non-paying option.

Amazon's been doing that forever, though. Back in 2005, I ordered the (then-new) Bananarama CD Drama from Amazon UK for £8.99 ($14), but the same disc on Amazon US was $45.99. Even with international shipping, it was still less than half price to import it myself. There was another time I ordered a CD and a CD single from Amazon UK and it was still less than half what Amazon US wanted for just the album CD. Of course, if you're talking about what Amazon US charges for US discs, that's another story.

Ya know, people always say that, but hasn't every post-CD audio format been a huge failure? I don't know anyone who owns an SACD or DVD-Audio disc. In fact, I'd bet that less than half my friends even know such formats exist. Or existed, as the case might be.

I've pretty much stopped buying CDs, and I've gone to nearly 100% vinyl and digital.

Why do people keep calling downloaded music "digital"??? CDs are digital also- they were the first consumer digital audio format!

I have tons of records and a pretty good turntable, but I don't see the appeal of buying new stuff on vinyl. The funny thing is that the new albums that sound better on LP than CD is because the LPs are actually mixed CORRECTLY while the CDs are mixed "loudness-war" style with no dynamic range! I've heard instances of people recording the LPs to CD and having the result sound better than the legit CD. If that's a scheme to get people to switch back to LP, I guess it's working- though the recent LPs I've seen have been overpriced as well, sometimes MORE than the CD!

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I like this guy's music taste- I noticed one of his CDs shown here is Thomas Dolby's "Golden Age of Wireless", which was the 2nd CD I bought in 1985 and still sounds great, though I may have to get the reissue just because it comes with a DVD of the "Live Wireless" concert.

I do, but not too many- SACD is great especially in multi-channel, but they just haven't put out much compelling stuff on it. There were a few good releases when it was new, and then nothing else came out. Hardware support has been pretty bad too, though now it looks like all of Sony's current Blu-Ray players can play them though there's not much out to listen to on them now! If the industry were smart they would have made EVERY new release a hybrid SACD, so that would be the only format available and they'd still play on regular CD players and motivate people to upgrade their equipment to hear the SACD tracks.

An entire book? On a CD? Absurd!

In a certain context, "digital" has come to mean that the media is distributed only as bits and bytes, without any attachment to a physical format. Perhaps "digitally distributed" would be a more proper term, and "digital distribution" is indeed used often in a gaming context with Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, etc. But, people like to shorten things when possible (see how "Blu-ray" has become common parlance instead of "Blu-ray Disc").