This blog will list reasons why various industries will go up or down in the future, so may be of assistance in long term investment thinking. However, this should only be one tiny input to your investment strategy. Although I will give my best opinion, it is only an opinion and I cannot accept any responsibility for any consequences. You should read my arguments and then make your own decisions.
Anyway, to start off with something obvious, I will consider The Music Industry.
The music industry is going to struggle even more than today. They have taken almost the exact opposite strategy to what they should have done. They have alienated almost their entire customer base by treating everyone as criminals, while still doing their best to fleece honest customers with ludicrously high prices and often selling padding in place of decent content. They have squandered their customer good will and few will miss the big players when they die.
The simple fact is that music no longer needs the big providers. Music is something that most people have some capability to create and in which very many people are extremely competent, and often want no more reward than a round of applause. Whereas aspiring bands and singers once had to go to the music producer companies to be heard, they can easily do so today on the net. Youtube is just one site, but is easily the place to publish new music for amateurs and small bands. Recording equipment is mostly just IT so is falling in cost exponentially.
Hiring a quiet room and decent equipment and getting a good recording on-line is now well within the means of most bands. Who needs the big players any more?
As for quality, the bands in the charts are not very different from many you have never heard of. If you hear a song you like, you can easily find others in similar style using music search engines. Why pay a fortune for a couple of decent tracks and a lot of padding on a CD in a plastic case, when you can download many hours of high quality free stuff that sounds similar?
And the music business model is evolving. Giving music away for free is a good way to get rich. The more people that hear it and like it, the more will buy tickets for the next concert, and T-shirt and whatever. The track download is becoming just an advert for the real thing. So what if most people never pay anything? If a few thousand buy concert tickets, there is still enough potential reward to justify production.
So, the music industry is fighting hard in the courts and trying to force regulators to protect it, but no-one needs it any more and even if they haven't noticed yet, they soon will. It can roar and even bite a few more heads off, but it is dying. Disinvest.
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