Who hates shrink-wrap on CDs and jewel cases?

Question by del_icious_manager: Who hates shrink-wrap on CDs and jewel cases?
A CD I ordered yesterday arrived this morning (excellent service!). Several CDs have arrived in the last week or so. All of them have been encased in this inpenetrable shrink-wrap. I can’t get the damn stuff off the CD. It has no tag to ease removal (in common with MOST such wrappings) and no way to remove it (without the danger of damaging the jewel case or booklet inside) other that desperately picking away at the edges of the shrink wrap in the vain hope that some of it might eventually come away. I know there is a special little ‘gizmo’ to cut it off, but that’s not the point – this is a case of ‘principal’.

I remember just a few years ago when (in the UK at least) CDs came unblemished by this plastic pestilence. Why is it there? CDs don’t ‘go off’ if not vacuum packed. The nasty jewel cases can still be marked and broken THROUGH the shrink wrap. And it doesn’t ensure it’s new either – shrink-wrap machines are cheap and easy to acquire.

So, I’ve given up on working out why it’s there at all. Help me on this.

And then there’s the jewel case itself. Don’t you just loathe them? The hinges snap if you look at them harshly and the CD-retaining splines on clear models break as if it were their job to do so. What is wrong with the (comparitively) sturdy, appropriately laminated Digipack?

Am I the only music lover driven insane by these things?

Best answer:

Answer by Switch ??
actually, what I find awful, is when the shrink wrap on CD and DVDs gets stuck to the cases. I must be obsessive compulsive because this stuff drives me absolutely insane.

not only that, those stupid security seals…they get “sticky” all over the cases. again obsessive, I could just cut them open, but I have to take them entirely off.

What do you think? Answer below!