Appreciate your view, and am no expert at this, but as you mentioned, the numbers do speak for themselves. Yeah, it isn't just "the good old days," we all who followed the music industry saw a huge decline in revenue in the 2000's (it was catastrophic and was as punch to the gut). It just kept going down year after year. And as you mentioned, if you adjust for inflation, the size if the industry is still smaller than it used to be...

...Also, it seems like it depends on where you look for yearly revenue. At least this research article is more like what I saw (although, not sure what numbers are correct): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-Recorded-Music-In...

Regardless, yeah, the music industry took a huge hit, and is looking better these days with streaming (which saved it), but it's still not great.

>And that's the thing: if the prices are too high, in the absence of piracy, most people are going to just do without. There's no lost sale when someone decides to do without rather than pay a price they thing is unreasonable.

Agreed, if prices are too high, yes, they'll do with out. But in the past, on average, it seems like most people did actually purchase CD's and DVD's, me included. Most of us had quite a sizable collection, and would routinely visit music stores to pay $20 to buy a CD, just because they liked one or two songs (and that's in 90's money). Yes, the music industry took a lot of the share of revenue, but that industry still is what promoted and supported the musicians.