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Did anyone here ever actually fully pay for BMG or Columbia House?

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

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  • ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I don’t understand the question?

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    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      BMG is a kind of Mercedes and Colombia House is coffee. I think. I’ve no idea either.

      I think it’s the yanks assuming the internet is populated by yanks again

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      • Jaybob32@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It was a tape then CD subscription. Except you initially got 10 or 15 albums for a penny or a dollar, I can’t remember. But then you had to buy so many CDs over the next year or something. And the prices were stupid.

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      • pinwurm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Columbia House and BMG were record clubs in the 1990s. This was a subscription service that regularly sent music album CDs to your house. They advertised in mailings, TV, radio, etc. It was ubiquitous.

        The catalog for available records was quite vast. 

        In order to get new customers, these record clubs had a loss leader marketing approach. You would get 5-10 CDs for only a penny for signing up, and you are not charged for the first month. After, there is a hefty cost. The CDs are yours to keep, but you need to cancel the membership before the first payment is due.

        Word spread pretty fast that the deal was legit. For many of us kids pre-internet piracy, Columbia House represents the biggest album haul of that era.

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    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I don’t understand the question?

      Only you can answer what you’re asking, as only you know whether you understand the question.

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  • seeCseas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    what are those things?

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    • thatgirlwasfire@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I think they were subscriptions you could get for records. They were infamous for misleading consumers about the true monthly coat during signups.

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  • thekaufaz@toast.ooo ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I got like 6 free CDs, paid for one cd, then my mom found out, called them up and yelled and got me out of it. I was in 7th grade.

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  • twistypencil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Those things were the analog Napster, the physical Limewire, so amazing.

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  • Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Almost every physical CD I own to this day came from Columbia House and their random ass “get 12 CDs for five cents” ads.

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  • MissO@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    1. God I feel so old right now.
    2. No, I did not.
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  • ultratiem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Lmao, no. I remember just writing any name on those forms as they never verified. I think I took them for about 60 CDs in total

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  • Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I did. I loved music and it was cheaper than the record store. It only seems dumb now because of the internet. The big downside of it was limited choices, but it also got me to try some new music out. It was one of those things every comedian made fun of, yet participated in.

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I probably have 200 CDs from them that I paid maybe $300 for. Then MP3’s came out.

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  • Thteven@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I hit both of them pretty hard. I just kept filling out those cards for the deals and not buying anything at full price and they never stopped sending me the CDs, I paid something like $20 for 150 albums. A bunch of kids at my school did that and we would just make copies of everything and trade them to each other. I got a call from collections one time and told them good luck getting any money because I was 16 years old and they never called again haha.

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  • designerabortions@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I did. My mom thought it was an excellent deal and we maintained our subscription for many years, actually. They’d give you deals on cds periodically, so yeah my parents were all about it. They also did the movie one.

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  • ShustOne@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We didn’t do the CD ones but we did the Encyclopedia one. It was helpful pre world wide web.

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  • kill_dash_nine@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We didn’t have many CDs even after CD players had become pretty popular so we had Columbia House. We would typically the the 3 CDs that you bought for a special price from a catalog and nothing more. It was helpful in getting a decent collection pretty quickly though. Almost all of my CDs as a kid came from them.

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  • jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You mean those old ass CD subscriptions?

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    • TheTaj@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah, this is a thread for old farts. I’ll confess that I signed up for Columbia House back before CDs. Got 10 records for a penny and had to commit to buy 5 more over the next year. Each month, there was a “selection of the month” announced and if your didn’t respond within the required amount of time, it would show up at your door and you were stuck with the bill and the record. This is why many of the records you find on the used market are “club editions” that lack many of the more expensive features like gatefold covers.

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  • rhacer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    CDs? I started with Vinyl!

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