Thanks to Joe for letting me know - Haight-Ashbury Music in Sunnyvale seems to be the latest victim of the music industry fallout, closing today. That's funny in a twisted kind of way. It was almost exactly two years ago that I shut down Sonica Music for good. You can't run a viable business when you've got no customers. It's easy to say that both of these businesses failed to compete and deserved to die; but what you're seeing isn't isolated. It's more an indictment of the industry behind it; with their arrogant licensing terms - which had as much involvement in the death of these institutions as the changing tastes of the customers. 

Lots has happened in those two years, but the guys at Sunnyvale Music World (what Haight-Ashbury used to be called) were all friends, even if we were competitors for several years. Sad to see them go. It's only a matter of time before it all hits here in Australia. You can see the local music stores slowly dying, both of them. It's the same story all over again. There's just nothing anybody can do about it. One guy who had a NSW music shop almost begged me - you ran a music store? Please buy my store from me. You know you want to. I'll give you good terms.

Funny thing though, I don't want to. Watching a music store die is not enjoyable for anybody concerned.

Coincidentally, Intel also closed down its last Silicon Valley fab plant.