Order of quality

I understand your frustration and have been there many times. I always prefer a physical copy of some sort but have to cave on downloads sometimes and I started to become more okay with downloads a few years ago. I still strongly prefer physical media, as it's easy for things to get buried on the hard drive and then I just forget to listen to them.

In order for a record or CD to be sold worldwide, the label or artist has to have some kind of distribution system. There are huge distributors that offer this service for physical media but they charge a fee for it. They want the record at wholesale prices and in many cases they will not pay the artist or label right away. They will send payment when a certain amount have sold, or once every 90 or 180 days. They also have the right to refuse to distribute items for any reason.

Back in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s many independent labels and artists lost a LOT of money or in some cases went bankrupt due to distributor collapses. Three I can think of off the top of my head were Rough Trade US (the distro/label, not the record shop), Dutch East India, and EFA Media (Germany).

In every case they imploded still owing money to labels and artists. In some cases they also had deals to control manufacturing and never gave accurate accounts of sales to the labels and artists (P&D deals).

Fast forward to 2022. For many artists these massive distributors (or even a smaller one) are simply not an option anymore and they need to be paid up front for their wares. For smaller scale independent artists, that means selling directly.

In some cases, a smaller scale artist may be able to sell a certain minimum of copies to various record stores around the world for payment up front, but then the store will add any import and overhead costs to make their margins. It goes without saying that no store is going to do this for an artist whose albums wouldn't quickly sell.