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I think the use of revenue is a little disingenuous. Producing, packing, and shipping a physical copy and marketing on broadcast television were major expenses

I think the use of revenue is a little disingenuous. Producing, packing, and shipping a physical copy and marketing on broadcast television were major expenses of the pre-2000 world that they no longer have to the same extent (maybe they still buy TV ads but I haven't seen one in a decade at least, used to be all over the place). If you keep smaller part of $12 or a larger part of $0.99 your revenue could fall with profits staying the same. Maybe the overall picture stays the same but this was very distracting for me from the argument made in the article. It made me wonder what else isn't quite right.

pjc50 8y ago
The peak on the graph is 1999. At the start of the decline, there wasn't really a good way to buy music in digital format at all. iTunes launched in its current form in 2003. The decline between those years was essentially the industry losing $12 sales to $0 sales: either directly to piracy, or to competition for time and attention on the Internet. Youtube blew even more of a hole in the industry in 2005, replacing purchases with streaming. This plays $0.0006 per stream. (The corresponding profits graph is really hard to find, which suggests that the data may not be so publicly available?)