Since there is a very potential global recession looming over us, it is very likely that there will be a vinyl bubble. For starters, there are a lot of people who are adopting it because it's the trendy thing to do. When the recession hits, those people will flock to a less expensive hipster hobby. (cassettes anyone?) What we will be left with is a flooded market of new pop vinyl, cheap Crosleys, and conglomeration of pressing plants. Many of the people in the record business now are life-time supporters who might see this next bubble as their last opportunity to cash-out and retire from the business. So expect a lot of record stores to close, expect small labels to get conglomerated under big labels, and pressing plants to shut down and sell their equipment to large companies like the supposed new Columbia Record Club that is supposed to re-launch. They'll make it unprofitable for indie bands to get pressed, thus killing-off a large portion of vinyl collectors.

In short, people are going to get on the hype-wagon too late and just fuck it up for everyone. The vinyl business that will be left-over will be the die-hard collectors who are still trading Led Zeppelin bootlegs and indie labels on eBay for a premium. Today we are seeing all kinds of re-issues happening. Led Zeppelin and Rush just re-released their catalog. But this will end soon and there will be no more re-releases. I'm guessing that Apple will help crush the vinyl industry by supporting FLAC on their devices as well as sell a audiophile-grade iPod with mass capacity to hold an entire collection of FLAC/ALAC files. Thus taking-over the audiophile collector market.

Enjoy it while it lasts folks.