What’s Hip Hapnin?

I watched an interesting documentary the other day.  It was on the history of cold.  Apparently 100 years ago there was a booming ice industry.  Many people became millionaires by exporting ice to places that are warm.  We don’t talk about the ice industry anymore.  I have a feeling that the consumption of ice hasn’t changed much since then.  We still want cold drinks, ice cream etc.  The ice guys should have become the refrigerator guys.  After all they were the “cold” experts right? The problem is they weren’t in the “Make things cold” business they were in the ice distribution business.   It was only a few years after the invention of an affordable freezer that the whole industry stopped.

The record industry is in big trouble.  They blame illegal downloading on the Internet as the cause of their failure.  The problem is the entire industry was built on controlling distribution.  Before recording to physical media was invented the industry didn’t exists.  People would go to a concert or play an instrument and performance defined what music distribution was since 10,000 BC.  That model is dead…they don’t realize it yet but they are already out of business.  Everything they are working on are just desperate efforts to continue to control distribution.   I have a feeling that artists of the future will make money on performances again instead of record sales.  When we look back there will be a 100-year blip on the radar where people could make money on music distribution.  If you ask me that is a good thing.