Would vinyl even be invented today?

If it was it would be treated like a miracle.
As would a book, all that wisdom, no internet bill, no battery, no plug -OMG !

Lots of good jazz and classical music to record, there never was any good rock music to record.

Scvan, you hit that nail SQUARELY on the head.
USA is totally a "next thing" market on about anything you care to mention.

One has merely to have an elementary understanding of American society to know his comment is spot on and anything but silly.

BIF, most on here see themselves in your post.
However, that represents about .01 % of Americans.
Scvan is correct .

Zd542, I respect your posts in general but I can think of nothing to say but just look around you in a consumer mad society .
Perhaps why someone will spend 10K more for a Passat if you puy 4 ten buck rings on the front? Or 30 bucks more for a shirt with an alligator on it than same from the same Asian factory.
X 10,000 .

Oh? Was the sale of 300 million hula-hoops in 18 months a "minor" phenom ?
If Americans had the SLIGHTEST interest in the intrinsic value of music the jazz and classical market would not be 2-3 %.

IMO you just don't understand the tsunamic effect of the "next thing" in USA.

APPLE sold 10 million of the new iPhone in one day.
Not a hundred people really needed one .

Its not about being a "hipster", many/ most Americans have a COMPULSION to buy what is considered cool in the circle they roll with. The American dream is defined solely by consumption. It ain't complicated.

I worry about it because Wall Street speculation in food commodities, just for a start, has put a billion people on the edge of starvation .
There is a word for people who stand in huge lines all night to buy the latest iPhone or version of a war game, not to mention those who camp out for a week to get a cheap TV etc, that word is insane.

You think the American Dream is what you make it, but you are dancing to a tune you never wrote.

I always enjoy you posts Zd542 and I mean no disrespect to you personally.

Our different outlooks come from the most basic premises.
You believe everything you have belongs to you and I believe everything I have belongs to God.
I may be wrong in which case I have lost little.
I may be right, in which case I have gained everything.

IMO waiting in line to waste 500 bucks when others have nothing to eat says all there is to say.
Not that I am a saint, I worry if my excuse that I needed my
1ittle 10K system to listen to the great Christian masterpieces of Bach, Schutz and Monteverdi will fly.

To alert people to the fact there might be judgements doesn't mean you think you are the judge.