It has really become just a matter of convenience.
Lets face it the consumer that is average joe makes up the vast majority of all media sales, not us hobbyist junkies!
Average Joe has moved right along with tech advances and loves it!
CD is facing the same extinction event that vinyl was say 35 years ago give or take, will it roll over and die ? Of course not just like vinyl has not but make no mistake both cd and vinyl are "zombie" media in consumer speak, they are both "dead" but refuse to actually die!
So convenience....
When average Joe discovered cd he was over the moon, no more replacing styli, cleaning of vinyl, getting up every 20 minutes, setting up the tt ( if they ever did?).
Now they had these shiny little discs that were extremely resilient to light scratches and grubby fingerprints, a lot easier to store and hit play and get an hour or more of music, plus remote controls! And playback in the car! Yes I know the 50,s offered record players as an option in cars thank you.
Then as tech advanced and video tapes were replaced with dvd and bluray average Joe became even happier that their cd could now play in those dvd and bluray machines and hey even less boxes to own!
Now we are at streaming and digital hirez files ( and yes I have skipped over ipods and mp3 files entirely!).
Will these replace cd in the mainstream to average Joe? I think they mostly already have.
Most smartphones now are more than capable of streaming hirez files or Tidal etc to a home audio system or in the car so now average Joe can play high quality music with the one item he would never leave home without anyway, the phone. I will be honest here, the first thing I do on getting into the car is sync to my phone and play via Tidal. No more zipper cases of cds to fumble with any more.
As I said this is all about average Joe the mainstream consumer not the audio junkie! Can you imagine Joe obsessing over whether he should change the VTA if he plays a 180gm record or not?
Lets be real here, we represent a tiny percentile of the consumer market and that is driven by tech and convenience.
And yes this my very humble opinion only and a somewhat cynical take with tongue in cheek before you get all righteous out there! (ps as a clue I DO adjust VTA for 180gm vinyl...lol)
