MP3 sales have already put a death grip on Redbook and higher resolution formats (which are already dinosaurs). The chasing of perfection in the guise of hi-res has only hastened the end of itself and Redbook by splintering the audiophile market. But as always audiophiles will be the last to wake up to the fact and instead cling to feeble statistics like vinyl sales going up from near zero to still near zero. In the future the only access to lossless sound may be in high quality video discs. I foresee a bleak Mad Max future for audio.
To be brutally honest most audio gear is barely sold on sounding more accurate, but instead on the urge to hunt for what is new, looks sexier, feels better, and is more entertaining. Again to be completely honest MP3 is a huge step forward in sound quality for the masses, compared to transistor radios, Walkmans, and old car stereos. So I'd say it's an overall a win for high fidelity. Manufacturers have helped to create this situation by not focusing on what should have been our core values (introducing the world to even better sound by being more practical and less elitist). As most listening environments get more compromised (smaller, more shared, and noisier) it won't matter to most anyway (unless you use closed headphones which has it's own limitations).
