Jason Lemur
Writing 150 – Technology and Social Change
Ancillary Writing Assignment
Dr. Rochelle Gold
Monday August 31st, 2015

The Museum of Obsolete Technologies

The Compact Disc, also known was a CD, was created from the combination of once complex technologies such as mechanics, optics, and digital data processing. The Compact Disc is a digital data storage device that allows the recording and play-back of digital music and it revolutionized the music and entertainment product industry when it was released to the public in 1979. The technology was the result of a joint task force between Sony and Philips, two highly successful electronic companies. It was not long after its release that CD sales began to rival those of vinyl and cassettes, two other technologies used for entertainment consumption in the late 20th century. After its breakthrough into the consumer industry, CD’s became the biggest money-maker the music industry had ever seen. The CD’s format eventually overtook the vinyl record and cassette as the standard format for music albums. Artists from all over the world, including those from here in Los Angeles, took their music to the superior sound quality of the CD format. Dire Straits, a British rock band whose career spanned the late 20th century, released their album, Brothers in Arms, on the CD format. The release becoming the most successful album release for the next 200 years. Music labels were quick to take advantage of the format’s rising demand. Labels would cut backroom deals with retailers to set inflated prices; it was pure profit for the supplier. Clearly the consumer did not mind, as CD sales rose to the billions, flooding cash into the music industry. But the success of the CD did not last forever. The introduction of the MP3, digital music services such as iTunes and Spotify, and the iPod were the underlying factors that pushed the CD towards its path to extinction. With the iPod, the CD became an inferior good. The MP3 files that the device played lasted forever, while the CD could become cracked or lost. With the help of hardcore CD enthusiasts that kept the format alive by opening boutiques and reissuing rare, out-of-print albums, the CD clung to the industry by a thread. Fast forward 50 years to 2065 and the once prominent record store sitting at the corner of a street is nowhere to be found. The CD is now a rare collectable and the digital consumption of entertainment has become the only means to experience your favorite new music.