My reply to a mate giving out on Facebook completely blaming the collapse of HMV on people who torrent movies and music:
Yeah lad, refusal to move with the times, to adopt to new technology, none of this had anything to do with the failure of HMV?
I've nothing but sympathy for the staff who may be out of a job but HMV as a company refused to change or at least support the people trying to establish their online service as a force to be reckoned with.
They stood firm in the face of mounting competition from competitors, both online and retail (e.g. supermarkets) relying on their brand strength and the idea that people still wanted a physical movie and music buying experience to keep them above water.
You can't keep a business the size of HMV open by catering to the Connors of this world (sorry Con).
"We were just waiting for HMV to turn their big guns on us but we just kept on going and getting bigger and bigger, and thinking they must be going to get their act together soon and come after us but they never did." That's a quote from one of the founders of Play.com on how they simply could not understand why HMV didn't wipe them out in the early days.
I remember the first time I bought a CD off Play.com, it was fucking awesome, I got it cheaper then the store and I did it at 3am while having a cup of tea after work.
"Downloadable music is just a fad and people will always want the atmosphere and experience of a music store rather than online shopping." That little gem came from Steve Knott in 2002, the then MD of HMV, who decided to ignore every single bit of market research pointing to the contrary.
This is a company, lets not forget, that were making so much money on the margins of CDs that the House of Commons set up a committee to investigate them.
My heart goes out to the staff, who were awesome, I was in HMV Grafton St. in December doing xmas shopping and the girl I asked for help went out of her way to make sure I got what I needed despite the fact the place was so busy you could barely move. But this isn't about the staff, this is about the decision makers (over the years, not just recently) ignoring the evidence, blaming other factors and basically trying to come out of this not looking like it was their fault.
