http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041014-4313.html

I found this article quite interesting. If Walmart pulls out of the music industry, they'd suffer massive losses, causing an incentive to lower prices. Since I don't think they can (legally) sell Walmart CDs for lower prices than they sell everyone else CDs, it woudl lower the cost of CDs for consumers by almost half for many CDs.

I really liked the last line:

Heh. that last line is pure gold. I also never thought i'd say this, but Go Wal-Mart!

You're obviously not in a U.S. university.

I'd be glad to see the RIAA knocked down a few notches when it comes to pricing, even if I don't buy music from Wal-Mart (due to their censoring). Would (hopefully) force/allow Best Buy to reduce its prices as well.

Oh, I don't shop at Walmart either, but that's what people are hoping, for an 'across the board' lowering of prices.

I meant to make this a poll.. I don't know if I can now. But if not:

Would you buy more CDs (vs downloading music) if they were only US$10 a cd?

Best Buy > *

I don't understand what people have against Wal-Mart...

I don't know if all Wal-Mart's censor their music, but the one where I live does, so everyone buys music at Target anyway.

Me either they have low price electronics that work... me personally I just bought a new alarm clock there today. It rocks and it was cheap... win, win.

Hire most of their employs for part-time, so they don't have to pay them as much, and monopolize small towns, knocking out "Ma and Pa's General Store" and forcing most people in the small town to get a job at Wal-Mart, where they still only pay them part-time.

But I like what their doing here, $10 CDs would be very nice.

But uh.. best buy has... better electronics... at lower prices..

If they start selling CDs for < $10 I'll start shopping there.

http://www.walmartwatch.com
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
http://www.1worldcommunication.org/Walmart.htm

I refuse to buy anything from Walmart and I worked there for +3 years. I've had many different jobs, in many different companies, and Walmart takes the cake for being the worst company that I have ever worked for. They make fast food jobs look attractive, literally. I despise Walmart with a passion, and although I don't like to use the word "hate", I absolutely hate this company, and hope that Americans start opening their eyes and boycott these bastards. Walmart is hell, and under that trucker hat, Sam Walton is sporting a pair of horns. Noticed how you can take the word Satan from Sam Walton.

Meh. Their selection sucks.

I only buy from Wal-Mart if its something practical, like clocks and such. Anything electronic, its to Best Buy in the next town.

I work in the Walmart Electronics Dept -- I can tell you that no matter what, good ol' home office will never drop us out of the Music industry.

Its just not feasable, we don't even carry that much new music as it is, and when we do its generally $14-$20 CAN. We obviously don't make as much on CDs as we do on Consoles/Stereos/TVs, but we still sell a large amount of them.

The price drop, I could see but unless hell freezes over, I cannot forsee Walmart dropping the music section in all of their stores.