Instead of the $10 to $12 of profit the companies had been enjoying on each CD, they got about 67 cents from a digital single. By shifting the standard unit of commerce from the album to the single, iTunes disemboweled the labels’ profit margin. There was a 12 percent drop in revenues from 2000 to 2002 (the Napster era), but a 46 percent drop in revenues from 2002 to 2010 (the iTunes era).
