After more than seven years of technically existing, Wal-Mart’s digital music store will close at the end of August, the company announced today. Wal-Mart, America’s Giving Tree, only sought to provide consumers with MP3s that were less expensive than iTunes—sometimes as much as 10 cents cheaper— that America could then listen to while sitting in Wal-Mart’s protective shade, whiling away another sweet summer day. Unfortunately, America continued to take and take, like a spoiled little boy, and even though Wal-Mart loved that little boy, eventually Wal-Mart realized that its music store simply wasn’t turning the sort of profits it was used to or driving competitors out of business, like was normally expected from its age-old strategy of drastic undercutting. So when the little boy returns on August 29 to download the latest album, there will be nothing left.
But don’t be sad. The little boy will nurture the Wal-Mart Tree by feeding it with movie downloads, wildly inflated ticket surcharges, and other random infusions of billions of dollars for things, like sweatpants. And the Wal-Mart Tree will continue to grow big and strong, and spread its roots through the cracked pavements of the whole wide world. The End.