@Richard
Yes indeed, being an analogue format that involves physical contact, they wear down eventually after masses of playtime, but that means is another sale ;-)

Personally, I don't have that problem because I listen to my music on Audio Cassette due to it being a recordable analogue format.  Whenever I buy a Vinyl, I stick it through an analogue exciter and record it to tape, something I thoroughly enjoy doing because I sort of become mastering engineer.  I listen to almost all my music on cassette (I have a very nice cassette deck for that).  Recording to cassette also doubles the convenience for me, because when I go out for a walk or whatever, I just stick that same Audio Cassette into a cassette Walkman and listen to that.  No twatting around with stupid codecs and files for me, I just have incredible sounding audio wherever I want it, just like it used to be before all this digital shit came along and almost ruined it all.

I can't tell you how pleased I am that Vinyl is coming back with the sheer force that it is, it's freaking awesome!  Buy yup, I never wear down my Vinyl, I only ever spin it if I fancy the enjoyment of watching it spin or I want to have fun recording from it through the exciter.  I don't care when a cassette recording wears down, because to me it sounds better the older it gets, and I can always re-record from the Vinyl if I wanted to anyway.  That's one of the main attractions of it for me, I see Vinyl as an Analogue original that I can record from, so I always have the best quality audio possible, I have complete control over the recording quality - fun stuff :-)

And I see it on YouTube more and more, the iPad generation are starting to discover Vinyl, Audio Cassette decks and Open Reel systems, and understandably, they love it to bits, you can see the obsession in their faces, it's really nice to see.  And what's extra good about the Vinyl comeback, is that it's happening in front of a generation who knew nothing other than the inferior digital technology that is being forced down everyones throat.  The select young generation that are now dumping their iPads and discovering Vinyl, will then move onto real amplifiers, real Hi-Fi speakers, and finally real analogue recording (and that means either cassette or open reel).

The same thing has happened in the musical instrument industry.  Big names like Korg and a whole bunch of others have now started to manufacture real analogue sysnthesizers again, and now that the iPad generation have had a taste of there, there is no going back.  As with Vinyl, this is great news because it's the first time during all this touchscreen nonsense, that they finally realise why the older music sounds better, why it sounds like it does, and why they can't be manipulated in ways they are being practiced by Apple etc.  They are starting to get a glimpse of a world that still exists, a world without Apple.  They're diving right in to analogue, and in turn, they're telling their friends about it, who in turn, are telling thir frends about it.

Anyway, my apologies, I can see I'm rambling on far too much here.

@Shane
I'm glad I don't live in the UAE with Cassette prices like that, bloody hell :-D

As for the other stuff, bootlegs etc.  It's a problem, but again, remember that with pyhsical analogue formats, those pirates were only putting-out second generation copies at best.  And even if the copies were as good as the original, those massive pirate and bootleg outfits are a lot easier to track down and shut down than people sharing files in cyberspace.  It's the convenience of digital that makes it easy to share, but there is no such convenience when you're dealing with physical analogue formats.  Those pirated copies have to be physically distributed, making it comparatively easy for them to be dealt with.