Quote:
Originally Posted by GA Russell
fjt, not to pick nits, but your description of the move from LPs to CDs is not accurate for the US market. In the fall of '88 the record companies informed the American retailers that they would no longer accept returns of vinyl. So the US retailers had little choice but to discontinue carrying the vinyl. Canadian retailers continued to carry vinyl for a year or more after.
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In my area most retailers had already shrunk vinyl to essentially zero long before 88. <shrug> Couldn't swear to it without research but I'm pretty sure retailers switched to CD as their cash cow circa 1985-86. (I was a holdout til then. I took it as a sign to start shopping for a CD player when the new LPs were moved to what had been the bargain bin section.)
Edit: Here's a timeline that shows the transition complete by '89:
http://www.soc.duke.edu/~s142tm01/history4.html
The reason why the record companies stopped taking returns? The economics changed, right? We do agree that customer willingness to stick with a deprecated format does not guarantee its availability?