(+) Does It Still Make Sense to Buy Genealogy Data CDs?

Compact discs and DVDs have going the way of the dodo, and online streaming media will keep that trend going throughout 2018, 2019, and probably for many more years.

Several articles have appeared online in the past few years describing the slowly dying music CD and video DVD businesses. In short, sales of CD and DVD disks are being replaced by directly downloading music and videos online to iPods, computers, and other music playback devices.

Remember the record and CD stores that used to be available at your local mall? Where have they all gone? What happened to the music store that sold CDs? How about the Blockbuster DVD rental store that used to be in your neighborhood? Where did it go? The reality is that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Apple TV, and other online video services made the DVD rental stores obsolete. The same is true of music CDs: it is easier, much faster, and usually cheaper to download the music online that it is to go to a “brick-and-mortar” store to purchase the same things on plastic disks.

We are now seeing the same thing with the companies that sell genealogy-related CD-ROM disks. Music CDs are already plummeting, video DVD sales are plummeting, can data CDs be far behind?