The decline of the automated music market

After reading Eric Bergstrom's lament on the decline of automated music
work, I retrieved an newspaper article published earlier this year by
Jura Koncius of the Washington Post to add to this topic; it's titled,
"Millennials don't want their parent's baubles".

She explains in the article (I will paraphrase some here) that baby
boomers born between 1946 and 1964 were collectors.  The millennials
born between 1980 and 2000 are not so interested in life style
trappings or nostalgic memorabilia.  She claims 20- or 30-some-things
don't appear to be defined by their possessions other than their latest
generation cellphones -- they live their life digitally through
Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Their whole life is on a computer and they don't need heirlooms to
clutter their lives or have to drag around.  Most millennials want to
live in mixed-use communities found in urban centers where they can
live near shopping, restaurants and work rather than moving to the
suburbs or rural areas.  The under-35 set has always had eBay to find
exactly what they wanted and aren't as nostalgic for former decades.

So it appears that the emerging digital world has played a big part
in changing how our newer generations value heirlooms; they don't!
You can't blame the few remaining player piano buyers for buying
a working player off of Craigslist for 10 cents on the dollar compared
to the cost of having one restored.

I fear that many of us are in the same boat with Eric -- our rebuild
jobs have slowed or dried up and we have re-buildable players in storage
but no market for them if we were to restore them.

Now, many of us rebuilders would probably be good candidates for the
TV show, "Hoarders", that tries to portray the pain of giving up your
treasures.  I suppose the day has come to give them a call.

Larry Schuette - The Player Piano Man
Raymond, Nebraska