response 1 of 60:

Aug 7 04:54 UTC 1991

No.  I hate it.  They will wear out, from being folded back and forth, 
they dont really help anything, because some of them have the longbox
with it!  Anyway, why not just keep the jewel box, and ditch the 
longbox?  I mean, they could keep the disks locked, and just ask for
the selection you want.  Or, like tapes, keep them in reusable plastic
longboxes that they could remove at the counter.

response 3 of 60:

Aug 7 05:36 UTC 1991

There is some speculation that organized crime controls the companies that
print or produce LP album jackets and now longboxes.  Rumor has it that
the record companies are afraid to eliminate longboxes because of threats
made.

The Wall Street Jounal had an article about this recently.  The cardboard
pack will apparently be used by all the major record companies starting next
year.  There is a slight chance that a compromise version -- a jewel box
that slides open and locks into longbox dimensions for display, but slides
back to jewel box size for storage -- could win out, but the author of the
WSJ piece made that seem rather unlikely.

I won't buy anything in one of the new cardboard packs, but then, since I
have no CD player, I only buy CD's as gifts for others.

response 5 of 60:

Aug 7 08:19 UTC 1991

  But how much do you think record companies care about what their consumers
think?

response 7 of 60:

Aug 8 18:26 UTC 1991

The so-called permanent box.
I've handled the Sting disc in the new packaging, and found it very
clumsy.  True, jewel boxes take a little time to learn to handle smoothly,
but these things are ridiculous.  You've got to unlfold several times to get
at the disc, and they simply won't last as long as the jewel box.
It's not like these things are commonly thrown out, anyway.  I've only tossed
two, due to breakage upon dropping.  Now the cardboard package won't break,
but how'd you like to unravel a dropped one to see your CD now split in 2?

response 9 of 60:

Aug 8 20:36 UTC 1991

  The design is similar to the packaging the early U2 discs were distributed
in (except that they will come folded out so they come close to longbox 
dimensions.)  My experience has been that such packaging does not hold up
that well and if anything happens to any part of it, you can't replace it
easily.  With a jewel box, you can replace the various parts if something
breaks, with the digipaks and ecopaks you're out of luck.  Also, I don't
like the fact that they don't stay closed.  The cardboard cases have a 
tendency to hang open slightly, allowing the CD to accumulate much more dust.

  Most irksome, though, is that most manufacturers will probably quickly
drop the booklets that now come with CDs.  Apparently at least one of the
new formats has room for a booklet but I suspect that it won't get much
use.

  There's basically not a single way in which they're significantly better
than jewel boxes and many ways in which they're worse.

response 11 of 60:

Aug 10 22:34 UTC 1991

  Do you mean jewel box or long box?  I imagine much of the savings you'd
make off of shipping sans jewel box would be eaten up by mangled discs.
I find it really hard to believe that they add $1-$2 to the price of a disc,
even for imports.  And the digipaks and ecopaks aren't really going to be
any better.  I doubt they'll weigh that much less.

response 13 of 60:

Aug 15 02:06 UTC 1991

Whoever manufactures empty jewel boxes for retail sale just hit a big bonanza.

response 15 of 60:

Aug 15 05:57 UTC 1991

  Unfortunately, unless you hack the damn digipaks apart, you won't 
be able to get anything resembling current jewel box inserts.

  re #14:  You haven't missed it, it hasn't happened yet (except in 
a few isolated cases.)  That's why people are trying to stop it *now*
before it can't be changed.

response 17 of 60:

Aug 16 01:59 UTC 1991

  Basically the theory was this:  people were complaining about the longbox
being ecologically wasteful (since most people just throw them out and they're
completely unnecessary (except maybe from a theft prevention standpoint)) and
I'm sure they cost the CD manufacturers a couple of cents to make so for 
whatever reasons, the CD manufacturers decided to introduce newer, cheaper
packaging and claim that they were doing it to be ecologically responsible.
 
  The problem comes in with the big record chains, who refuse to buy anything
that's not longbox shaped since they don't want to have to refit their stores
with new display systems (even though it would mean that they could store an
amazing number more discs in the same space if they were to use a well
designed system)  At this point I lose track of the record companies' logic
unless it becomes completely financial.  I can see no reason why anyone would
prefer the digipaks and ecopaks (and several reasons to prefer jewel boxes.)

response 19 of 60:

Aug 16 04:13 UTC 1991

As has been mentioned, I'm partial to the rumor that kneecaps will be 
broken if the US record companies don't buy a certain quantity of 
paperboard products.  No other explanation really makes complete sense 
of the situation.

response 21 of 60:

Aug 17 03:42 UTC 1991

  That's probably why the digipak seems to be winning out.  Although
I'd have thought that it would be more expensive than the eco-pak.

  Does that include the price of the longboxes in the jewel box figures?
If they're close, that might be enough to tip the balance.

response 23 of 60:

Sep 4 00:14 UTC 1991

Actually, I used to decorate my dorm-room door with the long-box covers.
Stopped doing it when it occured to me I was advertising the presence of my
brand new CD player, and I did finally stop collecting them.