Well, I've done my best to support a struggling high street business, but after today I'm walking away.
Like most of you referencing these auspicious pages, I'm a music lover and ever keen to satiate my addiction for music. Although I now (belatedly) indulge in streaming, it's usually to audition recordings which, if I dig, I'll go on to buy in a tangible format. More often than not I do so at HMV, if only because independent record shops are, geographically, a little out of my reach most of the time.
Today I ventured into my local HMV, as I do at least once a week, for a bit browse. Wow. CDs and LPs that have lay gathering dust for months were still there, but with fresh price stickers showing higher prices than before. "Two For £10" stickers have suddenly become "Two for £12". Naxos CDs are no longer two for a tenner but are £7.99 each. Vinyl seems to have risen by even more. Keith Jarrett's 'Koln Concert' CD - a 45 year old recording - is now priced at a ludicrous £17.99. And that's only a few things I remember seeing.
Then there's the farce that is the reintroduced loyalty card scheme. Assuming you can actually access the damn thing (a challenge for even the most experienced hacker), you can only spend any accumulated points on discounts of £5 per umpteen thousand points, and then only if you've got a smartphone to show an accompanying barcode. And only on purchases you've made in the last month. And by 10 January. The conditions are so restrictive I suspect few will get anything. (I never did get the six month subscription to Mojo I'd earned just before HMV nearly went tits up at the end of 2018, but that's another story.)
All told, I don't think that HMV's new owners seriously expect the chain to survive. They certainly don't appear to encouraging custom from long term punters like me.
With the greatest respect to their long-suffering employees (I used to be one, long, long ago), HMV can bugger off. I'm done with them.
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