Buying Music Online

I got thinking about this one yesterday, and what I realised is that 99% of the music I buy is done via online. Hard copies of product I generally source from Amazon.com while the remainder is usually sourced through hdtracks.com

Living in Australia, the farthest point from just about anywhere in the world certainly has its disadvantages. We have an excessive cost of living, we're one of the most taxed nations in the world, we have dated infrastructure and we pay through the teeth for just about everything, including music (the Australian iTunes Store is a perfect example of this).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about not supporting the little guy. I'd love to, but I've failed to mention that one of the main reasons I source music online is due to availability and selection. 

Thanks to the music streaming service Pandora, I have been made aware of a huge flow of artists and bands that previously flew under my radar. Trying to find EPs and LPs of these artists locally can be a chore at the best of times, so is it any wonder I look to sites such as Amazon? 

For example, I currently have a shopping cart full of music CDs and records and I decided to do an experiment. I decided to go through my Amazon cart and search for each one of the albums I planned to buy through the website of a well known, bumblebee coloured Australian retailer. 

The results were pretty interesting, of all the discs I was looking at, I remember only four of them actually showing up in search results, and of those, half of them were more than double the price of the same units on Amazon. Not that price is the issue here, but I'd be lying if I said it had no influence. Not to mention, pressings done locally, from my understanding anyway, are generally not up to the same standards as those in other regions.

What are your thoughts on buying music online? Is it your preferred method? Or do you find it nostalgic walking into a music shop and collecting a stack of albums to take to the counter?