fifteen dollars may seem like a lot of money for cds but if you look at the prices of other commodities and inflation it might not work out that way. as i recall when vinyl went away we were paying around 8 or 9 dollars for a new record. that's been about 20 years ago now. and as far as the cost of indie cds, yes you can get 1000 discs manufactured for 1500 bucks but that's nowhere near the cost of the whole project. you can spend anywhere from 1000 to 10000 dollars on studio time, tape, extra musicians,etc. the artwork and graphic design doesn't come cheap if you don't happen to have a pal who is an artist. and if you're trying to promote your music, plan on giving away at least 250 of that thousand to radio stations, promoters, agents, and others who might be beneficial to you in the future. if you add all this up, the unit cost of that indie cd is closer to 10 dollars each so if he is lucky the artist may pocket 5 dollars. of course, if he's an indie artist a lot of that money goes in the gas tank of the rental car that he picked up at the airport after making the long distance phone calls to book the ....on and on and on. so quit yer bitchin and if you are actually a supporter of live and independant music buy a cd,if your friend needs one and can't afford it buy him one for a present and realize that the musician has to pay all the same bills you have, probably doesn't have health insurance and is trying to offer you entertainment, possible exposure to actual works of art and a bit of respite from your daily cares so please help them out a little without getting so worried about 5 or 10 bucks.