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Comment by cubefox | Hacker News Reader

> That graph does not show cassettes were responsible for that, it just shows revenue numbers. There are other possible causes.

You don't mention any of these possible causes though.

> interpreted as people willing to buy music just fine provided it sounded good and kept sounding good

Yes, CDs replaced cassettes and records. They had better audio quality and were nearly as small as cassettes. But cassettes weren't much worse overall than records. The audio quality wasn't as good as vinyl (though that came mostly from cheaper tapes, good tapes has fairly competitive audio) and aged more quickly, but they were much smaller, which was a big advantage. So overall, cassette piracy was competitive with vinyl sales, but not with CD sales.

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> You don't mention any of these possible causes though. I did not, but I was responding to your "The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible" which to me reads like a statement of fact and not one of possible cause. The fact remains that the graph you shared does not proof cassettes were responsible for that.

Another possibility is that music revenue around that 1976 peak shown in your graph is due to wider reasons (e.g., '74 and '75 had negative GDP growth, then positive for a few years, then negative in '80 and '82 with a positive '81, that actually matches the revenue graph to some extent, so I don't think it's an established fact that cassettes were the cause for this.

As a disclaimer though, I'll admit my opinion is tainted by the fact that the record companies were pushing that 'cassettes are killing music' agenda, which I disagree with, so I'm certainly biased in my views.

> I did not, but I was responding to your "The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible" which to me reads like a statement of fact and not one of possible cause. The fact remains that the graph you shared does not proof cassettes were responsible for that.

It's an inference to the best explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/ No empirical evidence conclusively proves its true explanation, but the best available explanation is the most likely correct one.

> Another possibility is that music revenue around that 1976 peak shown in your graph is due to wider reasons (e.g., '74 and '75 had negative GDP growth, then positive for a few years, then negative in '80 and '82 with a positive '81, that actually matches the revenue graph to some extent, so I don't think it's an established fact that cassettes were the cause for this.

But that seems a much less likely explanation. The GDP remained pretty steady during that time:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

Nothing there is indicating that the music market would suddenly contract by 30%.

> It's an inference to the best explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/ No empirical evidence conclusively proves its true explanation, but the best available explanation is the most likely correct one.

This is gibberish, dude. If we don't know, let's admit we don't know. "the best available explanation is the most likely correct one" is not even close to reality.

> This is gibberish, dude. If we don't know, let's admit we don't know. "the best available explanation is the most likely correct one" is not even close to reality.

By this standard you don't know anything, since you can never rule out (bad) alternative explanations with certainty.

> It's an inference to the best explanation

You've not provided that explanation. You're telling us it's the best explanation but you haven't explained it or given any argument for why it's the best -- other than because it's what you've said is the best.

If you have a better explanation, why you don't just provide it to us? That's like saying to a scientist: I don't believe your explanation is the best we have, but won't provide a better one myself. Very easy.

That’s not how it works though, a scientist needs supporting evidence for their explanation before the null hypothesis can be ruled out. You seem to have your mind set on an explanation while other people aren’t seeing the evidence you’re seeing to support it.

>> It's an inference to the best explanation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/ No empirical evidence conclusively proves its true explanation, but the best available explanation is the most likely correct one.

I don’t think that link implies what you think it does.

It discusses abduction as a way to justify a hypothesis, you still need to test it. I’m not arguing your hypothesis is wrong, I’m just arguing I think you’re wrong in treating it as a fact (“the reality is yes …”). You could have said “the reality is cassettes could have … “ and that would be true.

As someone in college in the late 70s we did a ton of taping each others’ vinyl onto cassette and pretty no one I knew actually bought prerecorded cassettes unless that was the only medium available.

Of course, as with software, not every cassette copy represented a lost vinyl album sale but copying in places like colleges was very widespread.

> You don't mention any of these possible causes though.

What about

* The rise of blockbusters. Jaws was the first in 1975. Domestic office boomed https://i.redd.it/7nmrszljbdda1.png

* The rise of home gaming and computing. The second generation of gaming consoles is right around this time: Fairchild Channel F (1976), Atari 2600 (1977), Odyssey (1978)... In 1977 you had the Apple II, TRS-80, and the Commodore PET.

* VHS got introduced in 1977.

If we posit there are only so many dollars any one person is willing to spend on entertainment, perhaps it's not a stretch to think these have contributed to less dollars being spent on music?

> That graph does not show cassettes were responsible for that, it just shows revenue numbers. There are other possible causes.

You don't mention any of these possible causes though.

what?

if you put forward a graph and someone else points out that the graph doesn't show what you say it shows, the person has identified that the graph is not relevant to the discussion.

they don't now have the job of explaining the graph. the graph is not relevant. it just leaves the conversation.

Think probably the most important quality was you could use a cassette or CD in a portable player, boom box, or car stereo.

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