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The 2005 article that said people would never buy music online | Bad Tech Predictions - HW Forums

The 2005 article that said people would never buy music online

I was cleaning out my dad's old hard drive last Saturday and found a PC World article from 2005. It basically said digital music stores would flop because people want physical CDs they can hold and trade. The writer said nobody would trust putting their credit card into a computer just for a song file. I laughed out loud because I pay for three different streaming services now and haven't touched a CD in maybe a decade. My dad actually believed that article back then and kept buying CDs until 2012. Has anyone else found old predictions that aged like milk but seemed reasonable at the time?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa_jones212mo ago

Oh man, I actually heard a podcast about this a few months ago. They were interviewing one of the guys who helped set up the first legal mp3 stores back in the early 2000s. He said the biggest pushback was from record labels who thought downloads would kill music completely. And the credit card thing was real, like people really did worry about typing their info into a computer for a 99 cent song. I remember my own mom refusing to buy anything online until like 2010 because she thought hackers would get her bank info. Shows how fast things can flip though, right now we barely think about it. That PC World article probably looked totally reasonable at the time, which is kind of the scary part about making predictions about tech.

william9172mo ago

you know what, you're totally right about that "credit card thing was real" part. i used to laugh at people who were scared to buy stuff online, like how can you not trust a secure site in 2006 or whatever. but hearing you describe your mom's fear like that makes me rethink all of it. i guess if you grew up in a different time where the whole internet seemed shady, of course you'd be nervous typing your info into a random webpage for a 99 cent song. i mean, in 1999 the web was basically the wild west, people got viruses from clicking links. so the article probably wasn't that crazy for its era, even if it looks silly now. it's kind of humbling honestly, makes me wonder what stuff i'm dead wrong about today that'll seem dumb in 20 years.