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And they shouldn’t expect to agree at the end.
Interesting to observe, that the affected companies themselves are not involved at all and social media rules out its problems itself, as there are always followers and lobbyists for each camp. Finally we have more serious problems - even in audio.

It shouldn't be about teams. It should be about knowledge and understanding of all things audio.

And then emplode. Here are direct quotes. "after the fist couple of plays they get noisier and chunks of lacquer start falling off. They deteriorate rapidly, extremely quick. Laquers on their very own deteriorate, they chip, they spiderweb, I have seen countless lacquers come through the store. The lacquer is crusted and kind of flakey, you will blow the lacquer off the aluminum disc." "you are buying a medium that will self destruct on you, This is the equivalent of paying big time money for the little cassette recorder at the begining of Mission Impossible. You are going to listen to it a couple of times and this thing is going to implode on you"

THAT was the issue Fremer raised and called bullshit on. That is what started this whole debate. Fremer even said he wouldn't have commented at all had Mike E. merely pointed out that the medium is much more fragile and wears much more quickly than vinyl. But what Mike E. said as quoted above is bullshit.

So now Mike E is against this company selling lacquers because in his OPINION they hurt the industry. Perosnally....I fucking hate self appointed gate keepers of a fucking hobby. It gives me flash backs of episodes of The Simpsons with the comic book guy. If Mike E thinks these products are a bad idea. Fine. An opinion he gets to have and actually an opinion I share.

But that doesn't give him or anyone else a licence to pawn ridiculous assertions like you get two plays and it self destructs off as objective fact. *That* is the bullshit that Mike E shoveled on his Youtube video and the bullshit that Mike Fremer called him on. The rest is irrelevant

For my money, Chad was the drag on the video. He spoke at length without really saying much other than hawking his products. He's got a great business producing quality vinyl but as a moderator of this debate/discussion? Not so much. I found myself groaning a LOT during his extended soliloquies. Fortunately, the two Mikes were articulate & informative.

but hey, he’s no professional but a hobby moderator and a proud and passionate producer and salesman. And in fact his turns relaxed the whole thing and he’s respected by both and truly did them a favor to save ‘em from nitpicking. I thought Chad is smart, but today he was even smarter, while by the way adjusting the whole matter his way.

Finally I think everyone in this video (more or less) agreed on the technical facts and the right of everyone to spend his money on what he wants. The main point and difference was, if those facts are a good basis to promote and strongly defend the commercial lacquer market (in view of the critical life span) and companies like ERC (in view of suffering from at least the same manufacturing problems as other labels, but offering at more than 10 times the price) to the common audiophile consumers. I think everyone of us consumers can decide for himself, if he’s a lacquer and ERC guy or not and favor the one or other arguments.

The fact that my impression was, no one except Micheal Fremer was the ERC and lacquer kind of guy and that probably the majority of the readers and watchers here aren’t, too, should not be generally rated against Michael. I understood he has the focus to tell people what’s possible in terms of best sound regardless of cost or unreasonability and (while talking straight if necessary), tends towards a rather positive than critical general focus on the industry (not unusual for professional reviewers).

Although I personally for the most part rather follow Mike E.’s arguments, I very much appreciate Michael F’s will to also support the unreasonable if it’s fascinating in a certain way. If those supporters wouldn’t exist, we’d just see common consumer gear reviewed, because no one except a small audiophile community understands why someone should spend 5 or 10k on a cartridge. So I like and need both Michaels.

And get some titles for $15.00. Clearly high end audiophile LPs are not having that effect on the over all market. It IS OK for boutique labels to charge whatever they want. It's simple capitalism. If they cost too much the consumers won't buy them. If the consumers do but them then they don't cost too much. We are all free to choose for ourselves.

Did Blue Note increase their prices? I just ordered a boat load at $22.00 and $17.00 per title. This is an amazing bargain given how they are made.

I'm not blaming ERC, or its customers who agree to pay their prices, I'm just making an observation. It is not a question of "blaming" as you are trying to make me say.
Covid has little to do with the reasons for the price increase, at least this is not the reason given by Warner to justify the increase of their own catalog they did last summer, but the increase in raw materials as they said, which is not correlated with the new price policy (much higher) of their vinyl catalog btw.

on this page makes me think you were not always so sympathetic for highly priced records ;-)

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/marcelle-meyer-plays-debussy-french...