[haertig]

Price does make a difference in whether I will buy or forego something. For movies, I can't think of the last time I stepped into a horribly overpriced movie theater. Decades. I used to buy the DVD's, but after a while I realized that for something that I only watch once (99% of movies), even the cost of a DVD is too high. So now I wait for them to appear on Netflix, or even cable TV and watch them then. Books, since I'm not a fast reader, my purchases probably don't make any difference to anybody. I don't read fast enough to matter. And since I read a book only once, I search out used paperbacks or inexpensive eBooks. Music is kind of the same thing, but for different reasons.

I rarely buy audio these days, but I used to when I was younger. This is not because it is too expensive though. I think MP3's are priced reasonably. I just don't like the majority of them. For a while I was a holdout from the old rock-n-roll days, and would buy MP3's for music I listened to back in the 70's. But once Disco started, music took a nosedive for me. Now we have Rap and other such trash that I wouldn't listen to if you paid ME. I now much prefer the classics. Even with this, I don't go out buying a lot of Debussy, Schubert, etc. MP3's. I buy the piano sheet music and learn to perform it myself. Now THIS is bang for your buck. A few dollars for some sheet music that keeps me happy and entertained for many months. It takes that long for me to get a difficult Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, etc. piece up to performance level. [ EDIT - I guess when you add in the up-front cost to buy a good piano, then the bang for your buck of performing your own classical music goes out the window. But hey, it was a nice train of thought before it derailed! ]