Technology and the huge rise in Internet availability has made for sweeping changes in how people purchase and consume things. In no other area is this more apparent than in digital media. Indeed, the tidal wave of digital distribution, while not yet able to overcome the physical medium of DVD for movies, TV shows and video games, has already swept away the record industry and labels and is rapidly winning over the books market. However,it is very enjoyable and feels more secure to own a copy of something that you can hold in your hands. But, the simple truth is that being able to download whatever entertainment you seek from the Internet and then make it available to you at all times is so convenient that digital distribution’s dominance really was inevitable.
This is presupposing a stable and easy-to-use architecture for distribution, of course. People wouldn’t use the services if they didn’t trust them to deliver the product. But they do, and gone are the days when you might seek out a book or music CD at the store and discover they are sold out. Indeed, with digital distribution there is a complete paradigm-shift because there is no longer a production phase. Once you’ve made the initial product, there are unlimited copies available. All that is limited is consumer interest, and the Internet bandwidth to deliver the product.
Digital distribution’s success also has much to do with the tactics employed by its proponents. When Apple deployed its iTunes program for the first time, it didn’t just offer people the chance to buy an album from the comfort of their chairs – it offered the chance to buy single songs off that album! Suddenly people were not forced to buy an entire album in order to get the song they wanted, and suddenly artists were under increased pressure to rely less on “filler” content and produce instead tracks that people actually wanted to buy.