The CD-R spindle is a simple plastic apparatus meant to safely and securely hold many recordable compact discs (CD-Rs) in one place. Each CD-R held on the spindle typically held 650 to 700 megabytes of data or—arguably of more interest to most CD-R Spindle consumers—74 to 80 minutes of music. A single spindle typically held as many as 100 discs (often surrounded by a larger, cylindrical plastic cover).

This particular object—while not utterly extinct or unavailable to purchase today—represents a snapshot of a specific (and short-lived) information technology ecosystem, particularly regarding how people consumed music.

The recordable compact disc (particularly when found on a spindle) represents a method of data storage and communication that is distinctly characteristic to the period from which it emerges. In terms of storage, the CD-R Spindle arrives in part from the multimedia CD-ROM era of computing, but also the time in which compact discs were the dominant medium for storing, selling, and playing recorded music. In terms of communication, the CD-R spindle mostly precedes a number of technologies that have virtually obsoleted it: MP3 players and legitimate digital music services, widespread broadband internet, and smartphones.

The CD-R spindle often held dozens and dozens of otherwise loose CDs, which (outside of CD-RWs) ultimately speaks to the disposability of the individual discs, compared to individually-sold CD-R(W)s that would be contained inside jewel cases (for both protection and book-like shelving/organization).

At best, the CD-R Spindle reveals only the handwritten or printed label of the topmost disc, with the remainder of the discs being illegibly organized and likely blank (as may be the topmost disc itself).

Looking at the side of the spindle: a blank disc, a disc full of music, and a disc full of video or other data all look identical. Unlike a single CD in a (properly labeled) jewel case, there is no legible spine to allow the spindle to be a space-saving organizational solution for indexing CDs.

The result is that spindles are typically only full of blank CDs, and any recorded CDs are destroyed relatively quickly (sometimes accidentally, due to unintended scratches/etc) or—sometimes—kept in aftermarket containers (empty jewel cases, binders, etc). Regardless, most recorded CD-Rs have enjoyed short lives (being discarded far before they would succumb to "disc rot"), and each individual disc stands to represent the limited lifespan of the broader media ecology it was a part of. 

As such, the CD-R Spindle is an object that marks the transition between 1) the era of limited, local, persistent, physical music libraries of CD albums and 2) the era of virtually unlimited, streaming, ephemeral, digital music.

If a set of downloaded MP3s (from, say, Napster) burned to a CD-R is 1) a successor to the CD album and 2) a precursor to the Spotify/Pandora/etc stream, the CD-R Spindle bridges the gap between the á la carte curation of a music library (held on mass-produced, pre-recorded CDs) and the personalized deluge of subscription-based music consumption (as a service).

The CD-R Spindle no longer dominates digital music consumption because for every 74-80 minutes of new music we privately and personally consume (not via a broadcast), we exclusively have the flipping of bits on a smartphone rather than the consumption of blank CDs to be replenished once we hit the bottom of a spindle. In light of Marshall McLuhan's observation that "men have always been the sex organs of the technological world" ("Motorcar", Understanding Media), we can see that the CD-R era was one in which the CD-R technology's disposable nature caused humans to indeed act as its reproductive organs, demanding that they be produced for market by the billions.