While these technologies will get better with bigger pipes, they may not gain the market acceptance some expect because they assure consumers will relinquish ownership. Downloading won t have long-term value so long as you can t take it away from the desktop. Until the Rio s introduction, a user s computer hard disk drive was the sole medium of storage of downloaded music. Our infatuation with the Internet has lead us to believe miraculous things. Not to belittle them, but they are, in essence, catalog companies.
History shows catalog buyers are a limited percent of all buyers.
No one knows how much the percentage will change just by going online. We may be experiencing a wave of early adoption not to see it continue. What if all catalog buyers are also early computer adapters. We have too much real estate, if nothing else, dedicated to retail. However, brick and mortar retailers will have to reinvent themselves.