Well, thats the reality of the ever changing musical environment. Why release something on CD that might not be as well recieved by the general public when you can save a ton of money on preprinting the stuff and put it out as an online release for the more die hard fans?
I think its a brilliant biz decision that ultimately works in the favor of the band AND the fans. When you release stuff online you save a ton of money on the packaging and printing and all of that stuff. What people aren't getting here is that it helps the fans in the end because they are able to hear songs as a result that a band/record company might now have wanted to take the chance to release as a CD due to the monetary commitment. Case in point the B-sides from HTDAAB that they released on i-tunes. That stuff might have never seen the light of day on CD's unless they were broken up and tied to a single or something. Even then, bands aren't even releasing that many CD singles anymore because of the cost, so who knows if we would have ever heard the material.