Everything New is Old Again -Sunday, February 01, 2004 -4:52 am-
I've noticed a trend sweeping through the industries of America. It started during the 80's in the recording industry with the advent of CDs. Some bright, money-grubbing devil monkey at one of the major labels had an epiphany and said, "Hey, we've go t all theses old songs and it's easier to re-release them than come up with new stuff!" Soon thereafter, every popular song from the past was coming out on CD. Two decades later, the labels' catalogues are exhausted and the money has stopped flowing. T he industry's response? Send shock troops into the streets wearing tactical gear with RIAA emblazoned in large, yellow letters on the back to sue families on Welfare.
The RIAA was soon joined in this imperialistic drama by the movie industry. The creation of DVD was a huge boon to the MPAA. For a very low cost, movies could be re-released at bargain prices onto DVDs. At $6.00 a pop, it didn't matter if anyone lik ed the movie, people would buy it anyway because it was a "good deal". With the production costs long since recouped, the DVDs were all profit. For slightly larger outlay, the studios could release a DVD with "Special Features" and "Director's Commentar y" for outrageous prices and people would gladly pay for the scenes that were too bad to put into I Know What You Screamed Last Wedding IV. Eventually, the MPAA began to notice that, like the output of the RIAA, their products were increasingly not being bought. The first round of MPAA court cases followed.
Alarmingly, Ford Motors has started down the path clear-cut by the RIAA and the MPAA. Ford's sales are dropping because everyone is realizing that American cars suck. The SUV cash cows have gotten caught in a feature-war that requires R&D, thus negat ing their original economic advantage. The only car in Ford's line turning a profit is the Focus (designed in Europe, by the by). Ford's solution? Re-release popular designs of the past. So far, we have the New Thunderbird, the New Mustang, the New GT -40 (which, admittedly, makes me drool excessively), and recently, the New Shelby Cobra. I expect that before this decade is out we'll see UAW suing drivers for giving their friends rides and letting their kids borrow the car for a hot date.
Somehow, I don't see the computer industry escaping this pattern. I fully expect Windows 3.11 Programmers Build to appear on shelves before the release of Longhorn. Though since Longhorn is expected slightly after the Second Coming, we may h ave some time to get our credit cards ready.