Kind of sad, but inevitable.  I still have a big CD collection, but lately I've been downloading LPs more often because that's the only way I can get a release that I want.  

Since vinyl has been enjoying such a huge resurgence, I've been toying with the idea of getting a turntable, after doing without a turntable for over 25 years.  It would feel weird, especially after turntables were made obsolete by CD players so many years ago, and now CDs are officially obsolete.

BTW, did anyone here ever have eight tracks?  I remember them when I was a kid, but I never had any myself.  

Well, having a few radio shows spanning over 20 years spoiled me. You get used to the convenience of being able to pop a CD into a disc player and hitting the track number and pause button, cued up and ready to go. Cuing up vinyl LPs every two minutes for two or three straight hours is a huge pain in the ass, especially when you're also supposed to be going on mic every so often, keeping a log of the songs you're playing, plugging in PSAs, commercials, etc., and still finding time to answer the phone, run to the bathroom, smoke a cigarette, take transmitter readings, whatever. CDs made being a radio DJ a LOT easier. But these days you don't even need to lug your CDs around to do a radio show... all you need is an iPod or two, plug them into the control board and no one will know the difference. Also, playing your precious vinyl on radio station turntables with questionable needle quality (you have no idea how the other jocks on the station are treating these needles, and they may go six months or a year before getting replaced) you often find your records getting worn down a lot sooner than they should be. So anyway, while I saw the convenience of CDs from a radio DJ's point of view (to the point where I would actually prefer bands send CD promos to me instead of vinyl), I can also totally understand why we've reached the end of their lifespan. They're just not necessary anymore when you can purchase 320 kbps MP3s from just about anywhere and burn your own CDs, or put them on your MP3 players or whatever. They've just become the next dinosaur.

What will happen to 'record' shops in the future? Sure indi folk are going to move back to vinyl and CDs will become weird retro things like cassettes but what about all the other stuff? And if they are going to get rid of CDs it's surely only a matter of a few years before DVDs and Blurays are out, I mean you can download movies just as you can music.

Will there still be a place for mainstream record stores? Will CDs really completely go out? I mean we are looking at this from a pop music perspective although there is a genre of music where many of the fans don't do MP3s and also find vinyl inferior due to noise and that's the classical music fans.

Blimey I just finished reading Appetite For Self-Destruction - 'The Spectacular Demise of the Recording Industry in the Digital Age' and this is another bomb shell!

I'll form the rival church, Our Lady of Cassettes

Old School Hero said:

Who wants to start the Born Again Vinyl church with me?

Who wants to start the Born Again Vinyl church with me?

Good riddance.

My guess is that printed magazines are a lot closer to vinyl than CDs in terms of its ability to survive despite tech advances.  Just like some diehards will always want LPs and singles, some folks are always going to want actual printed pages.