Look up the origin for the term "bakers dozen" and you'll see this issue was considered serious enough for the creation of weights and measure laws going back to the 13th century. The penalty for shorting your customers could be losing a hand!
Clearly you're not a regular reader of Cracked online then. They do indeed often make use of some edgy wordage via a youthful vibe but many of their articles which make it to the front page of Digg are full of lessons in history and contain relevant social commentary. What really makes them great is that they actually employ quirky writers with strong personal styles to create original content *gasp* rather than being just another humor themed link farm. While still more irreverent than Mad magazine... they've also created an infinitely stronger web presence that appeals to a much broader demographic and I often find myself interested in their article titles enough to click through for a read.
@Alex - It's likely that digital downloads were going to significantly offset CD sales anyway (let's face it... mp3's are more convenient to acquire as well as use and it's not only more cost effective for consumers but also for producers/distributors) so it appears that the record companies did an excellent job of maximizing profits on that older medium right up to their so stated demise. Customers were willing to pay the premium so that pony was ridden hard right until it dropped.
My impression was that the article was pure speculation as the author wasn't present in any of the record company board rooms to know what decisions were being made and certainly didn't present any numbers that back up his particular claim. If I were to make a WAG it would be that apprehension about emerging tech, new mediums and the business models needed to support them were also integral in keeping their bread'n'butter CD market pricing high as they were probably unsure of what resources they'd need to make the transition and remain profitable.
Anyway, it was inevitable for the CD to be replaced by other mediums and looking at this in hindsight shows that aggressive pricing for that mearket most likely brought in more revenue than if they had lowered the pricing sooner.
It's hard to put this all into a comment box but pre-60's stuff like this is usually portrayed humorously while it makes me kind of sad as people actually seemed to care a great deal more about what they could do to make a marriage better back then as opposed to the last few decades.
Ok... so some of these things are what we consider to be sexist today but at least the general attitude was that couples had responsibilities toward each other which were emotionally, financially, etc. beneficial in many ways. Now we have media that mainly portrays how to catch a mate but not what to do with them along with the idolization of youth, stupidity and trendiness which seems to produce selfish and lazy people with unrealistic goals who are more concerned with, "What's in it for me?".
Now I do realize that this is painting a broad brush-stroke but I've found it hard to meet someone who is even considerate enough to do things like... if one person cooks dinner then the other offers to help with the dishes. Little things like that earn huge merit points with me anyway.
As a fan of old school sci-fi, I've often thought that several authors from that time were referring to themselves when writing of gods. (Asimov in particular.) For instance, this could be read as Clarke simply tossing a story he wasn't happy with and therefore the universe he had created on the pages gone.
It already extends the range of conventional naval guns by 10x (with the potential to be guided) which helps to keep us safe, fat and lazy and you ppl are forgetting that military tech like this often finds its way into the aeronautical and then private sectors which creates other useful technologies (as well as jobs) as it may very will be a less costly and next method for launching materials into space. This project is full of win.
My impression was that the article was pure speculation as the author wasn't present in any of the record company board rooms to know what decisions were being made and certainly didn't present any numbers that back up his particular claim. If I were to make a WAG it would be that apprehension about emerging tech, new mediums and the business models needed to support them were also integral in keeping their bread'n'butter CD market pricing high as they were probably unsure of what resources they'd need to make the transition and remain profitable.
Anyway, it was inevitable for the CD to be replaced by other mediums and looking at this in hindsight shows that aggressive pricing for that mearket most likely brought in more revenue than if they had lowered the pricing sooner.
Ok... so some of these things are what we consider to be sexist today but at least the general attitude was that couples had responsibilities toward each other which were emotionally, financially, etc. beneficial in many ways. Now we have media that mainly portrays how to catch a mate but not what to do with them along with the idolization of youth, stupidity and trendiness which seems to produce selfish and lazy people with unrealistic goals who are more concerned with, "What's in it for me?".
Now I do realize that this is painting a broad brush-stroke but I've found it hard to meet someone who is even considerate enough to do things like... if one person cooks dinner then the other offers to help with the dishes. Little things like that earn huge merit points with me anyway.