 Commercial cassettes have also shaped the reputations of popular music performers, significantly raising the prestige and earning power of some recording artists while lowering them for others.Scholars have noted a trend towards the equalization of status for genres and marginal traditions through the distribution of cassettes; the cassette industry is said to act as a leveler, blurring the older status distinctions that were still in place a generation ago.Despite their ubiquity, the popularity of audio cassettes has been compromised somewhat by competition from the rapidly growing video compact disc (VCD) medium.