In 1999, music industry revenue in the United States peaked at $14.6 billion (all numbers are from the RIAA). It is important to be precise, though, about what was being sold:


$12.8 billion was from the sell of CDs
$1.1 billion was from the sell of cassettes
$378 million was from the sell of music videos on physical media
$222.4 million was from the sell of CD singles
In short, the music industry was primarily selling plastic discs in jewel cases; the music encoded on those discs was a means of differentiating those pieces of plastic from other ones, but music itself was not being sold.

https://stratechery.com/?utm_source=Memberful&utm_campaign=002e99bd95-weekly_article_2019_01_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d4c7fece27-002e99bd95-111081553

In 1999, music industry revenue in the United States peaked at $14.6 billion (all numbers are from t