Vinyl & Data

In Discogs each release has one or more Format fields, in which a contributor has to indicate what format a device has, or what formats a device has, in case it has multiple formats. I simply looked at all the releases in the database and simply counted, and this is the list I got (from most releases to fewest releases): Vinyl: 4,819,258 CD: 2,913,785 File: 917,569 Cassette: 647,604 CDr: 386,541 Shellac: 146,494 DVD: 85,475 Box Set: 52,634 All Media: 29,217 Flexi-disc: 20,814 VHS: 18,674 8-Track Cartridge: 15,206 Acetate: 9,580 DVDr: 8,581 Lathe Cut: 8,023 SACD: 6,380 Reel-To-Reel: 5,022 Blu-ray: 3,705 Laserdisc: 3,077 Memory Stick: 1,701 Minidisc: 1,613 Edison Disc: 1,308 Cylinder: 1,290 Betacam SP: 1,060 Hybrid: 1,012 Floppy Disk: 1,003 Blu-ray-R: 674 CDV: 601 4-Track Cartridge: 593 DCC: 397 Pathé Disc: 367 U-matic: 362 Betamax: 263 DAT: 209 PlayTape: 144 Microcassette: 135 HD DVD: 65 MiniDV: 57 UMD: 51 VHD: 40 SelectaVision: 37 Tefifon: 3...

One category of releaes in Discogs are the "digital releases". Basically: MP3s or other digital formats from stores, iTunes releases, and so on. Call me old fashioned, but personally I don't see these as collectables, as to me they are just files on a computer or music player. But apparently many people disagree with that and collect them. In Discogs the digital releases have "File" in the format field. This makes it quite easy to recognize. So I wondered: how many of these "file" releases are there and where are they in the data? Is it mostly the newer releases, or are there also many older file releases? So I looked at everything in the latest data dump and found 917,569 releases that have "File" in the format field, which is about 10% of the releases in Discogs and 40% more than for example cassettes. Distribution of releases tagged as "File" in the Discogs data set So only in the very early days there were few "...