It’s great that musicians can sell a high cost item (vastly greater revenue vs streams per customer), but I do worry the labels are over-indulging here and heading the market towards a Funkopop like crash. Most record stores I go into have reoriented towards very mainstream new releases and overpriced ‘rare’ vintage albums. Meanwhile the more serious collectors market has moved to Discogs and Bandcamp/direct. So when the market turns on vinyl, physical stores will be the biggest direct losers. And even an average shop in the neighborhood is better than none at all.
Funkopop collections are a 2010s/2020s Beanie Babies. They released so many licensed lines that eventually the demand waned and collectors had ‘lost’ thousands.
Crash as in they made too many and nobody is buying them. Funkopop has more vinyl characters than demand resulting warehouses full of inventory that isn’t moving.
