Based in Chicago, Reverb have risen to prominence as a marketplace for music gear. This makes news of a new competitor appearing to challenge Discogs’ dominance very interesting, particularly because the site in question – Reverb LP- have enough weight behind them to be taken seriously. It’s an unusual position, and not an entirely welcome one. The point is that with Discogs holding such a comprehensive monopoly – and controlling a vast, user created and maintained database- there’s not much anyone can do to argue with whatever Discogs choices are if you’re a crate digger living in the sticks it’s the ‘cogs or bust. It’s also worth noting that it’s very rare for a company that are about to sell up to give any clues it’s about to happen… But if nothing else, one has to wonder why Discogs themselves aren’t buying up collections to sell from a centralised Discogs account? The idea that there some sort of lovely fun guys who wouldn’t do such a thing just seems naïve in the extreme. I would be genuinely astonished if plans for this process are not already in place – although it’s worth noting that Discogs themselves have denied that they are planning to sell up, so maybe it’s a long way off yet. As Amazon’s decimation of the independent book selling industry has shown, the warm fuzzy feeling of having a nice local shop where you know the owner turns out to mean dick all compared to the convenience of getting any book in the world for two quid cheaper. The consumer – vinyl dad’s worldwide buying over-priced Chicago house rarities – will stay happy if the delivery costs are low, the return system is reliable, and things like shitty grading are tightened up on. It’s worth bearing in mind that Uber have used aggressive subsidisation to throttle rival cab firms to great effect – as Amazon have done with book selling. In the case of an Amazon owned Discogs, this vertical integration would more likely take the shape of Amazon buying up swathes of second hand vinyl, storing them in their warehouses, integrating the delivery system into Amazon Prime, and using the economies of scale, weighty purchase power and subsidised losses to undercut other sellers on everything from record pricing to packaging and delivery costs. The old school record labels did this by owning recording studios, pressing plants, hi fi manufactures and record stores– effectively they could sign an artist, record their music, press it up, sell it and have a customer buy it without ever using a product that wasn’t made by ie Phillips. Any new parent company with the clout to buy the site would be reasonably likely to vertically integrate the company – for those of you less au fait with irritating corporate terminology, vertical integration is the process whereby a company expands into controlling every aspect of a supply line, from asset creation to sales. The idea that Amazon – or indeed any global corporation – could buy Discogs leads the mind to wonder what would happen if they did. As this market becomes increasingly valuable it’s little surprise that Amazon, itself a big fan of crushing the competition, is rumoured to be buying up the company, and we’ve talked about the attempts to clean up Discogs in advance of this (or any other) potential takeover elsewhere. It’s the Google of record selling, a hulking, monopoly that has near total control over the online sale of second hand vinyl. Discogs is a monster be-straddling the vinyl world.
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