CDs are still big in Japan.

https://qz.com/711490/why-japan-has-more-music-stores-than-t...

I mean, I'm aware of it, but can't understand why. It used to be they were at the forefront of new technology, but as with their isdn deployments, sometimes being too far ahead leads to dead ends like this one. It's quite an interesting phenomenon.

Having a tangible, beautiful object, often with additional art and conveniently readable and viewable extra information, a dead end?!

From where I sit, almost all the rest of the world are who went wrong, with impoverished, locked-in streaming services from businesses who take everything away the day you stop paying them, and dull audiofile-only downloads.

But we seem to agree that Abe declaring unauthorized CD copying preparation to terrorism is ludicrous...

Not really CDs but items (ex: handshake passes, photos, etc) that are attached to CDs.