I know that they still sell music on them in places like Walmart and Target. I haven’t purchased a CD in about 5 years.
How long before they stop producing physical media for music?
Those are two different questions. I don’t know if CD’s are dead. But vinyl, another physical medium, is increasing to the point that there are more vinyl plants coming online. I, personally, have only bought one or two CDs in the past 5 years, and have also only bought 1 or 2 new vinyl (that I didn’t own in any medium) in the last 5 years, so if CDs were king of the physical media before then I’d say yes, CDs are dying. But vinyl is not dying. AS a matter of fact, cassettes :eek: have been on an increase in the past 3 years or so, so while physical media may yet die, it is too soon still to nail its coffin.
Cloud storage and back-up services have helped a lot, when it comes to cutting the cord and going all-digital. But the wise consumer keeps physical back-up media too, just in case.
The last few works of music I’ve bought have been downloads, not on CDs, but, some of these, I have burned onto CDs again to play in my car. Physical media are still convenient.
There is still a market for CDs, particularly for classical music and compilations. They might not the best medium for buying the latest hit, but I think the format will continue.
Not dead, but getting close to pining for the fjords. I’m guessing it’ll be all but gone from mainstream use in a couple more years; CD players as standard equipment in new cars is disappearing.
it’ll hang on for a while in niche use like the aforementioned classical music enthusiasts.
Obviously they’re not dead yet, since they’re still being produced and sold. I’d be really interested to know how Amazon’s sales of physical CDs compares to their sales of digital music, both in total and for specific titles and genres; but I don’t know where to find such information.
My WAG is that CDs aren’t going to go away completely any time soon. They’ll continue to appeal to music lovers who like having something physical to have and to hold, to people without high-speed internet/data connections, to artists and their fans who like having autographable physical products for sale at their merch tables, and to the economy-minded who like being able to buy, sell, and borrow used CDs.
USBs as physical media are the most likely candidate to replace CDs; they’re more durable, can hold more data and are getting cheaper to manufacture. Quite a few artist already use 'em lieu, or addition to, other storage. I dunno if car manufacturers are hep to this yet, but if they are, then it’s a done deal from thereon.
CDs will always have a place, if not for unique audio quirks like skipping that can become a style unto itself.
Plus there’s always incorrigible hipsters to keep obsolete shit alive for inscrutable reasons.
I still buy used CDs. If I want new music, I generally download it, and then burn a CD both for backup and for use in the car.
In lots and lots of cars, CDs are the only option other than radio.
Sort of begs the question as to why even own physical media anymore if you can just stream whatever song you want to listen to whenever you want.
Nowadays it’s so easy to both rip and burn CDs that, for many of us, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether we buy our music in the form of a plastic disc or a downloadable set of 1s and 0s. It maycome down to a matter of price or convenience or whether or not we want the packaging that comes with the physical CD.
Because when the Carrington Event happens, I still want tunes!
And you can burn downloaded music onto a CD to play in your car. Many car CD players will even play digital files like mp3’s or AAC’s off a disc.
I have yet to download any music. But then again I don’t think I’ve bought a CD new in the past three years; used is just too easy and too much cheaper. I will note that the last time I looked at basic new cars last year, CD players were still pretty much in all of them.
This is a good way to play audio-books, too, where “hi fi” music quality isn’t so vital. You can jam a whole lot of “Old Time Radio” shows onto a CD in mp3 format. About 100 half-hour shows!
As noted above, many car stereo systems have USB ports too, so you can use a memory stick. That’s another blow against CDs. But it isn’t a fatal blow, by any means.
That’s still a CD.
CDs still have much higher sound quality. Streaming is fine for casual listening on my phone or as background music. The CD is preferable for serious listening.
It’s going to be many years before CD players are not standard in cars anymore. I pretty much never use mine since I got an after market satellite radio. At home I have GooglePlay and stream it through my Sonos speakers. I will probably never buy a CD again. Nearly anything that I want is on GooglePlay. As soon as a new album drops, that’s how I listen to it.
When you go to a concert by some small-time band, and want to support them and incidentally listen to them more later, what do you buy at the merch table? Yeah, you could always look them up on iTunes after you get home, but human nature being what it is, the band’s going to make a lot more sales at the venue than they will in the cold light of morning.
^^This.
The last mainstream label factory CD I bought new was probably 10 years ago. Since then it’s all been homebrew indie CDs of local artists playing in bars or restaurants or concerts wherever I’ve been. “Support your local musician” are words to live by. Plus I’ve bought an occasional used mainstream label CD via Amazon.
I’ve never bought music online although I do listen to free streaming services. IMO jango.com is da bomb.
Funny this topic should come up. I just got a newer car whose 7-CD changer can play MP3 data CDs. But which isn’t new enough to have a Bluetooth or USB interface. Or even a 1/8" audio jack aux port. 
My old car played audio CDs only. In that car I kept a dozen home-burned copies of factory CDs that have all fried in the sun and the foil is now flaking off. Into the trash they went.
So now I’m considering starting a project to rip my entire 400 CD collection to decent quality MP3 for cloud and USB stick storage to play at home. And then burn some subset of that to data CDs for the new car.
So IMO home-burned CDs have quite a life ahead of them. Though they may morph into CD and DVD as pure data storage for audio rather than the original CD-audio format.