Baseball cards WTF happened?

I was at target and decided it would be fun to get a pack of baseball cards.. like the good ol days.. hope to get a Giants player.. maybe Omar Vizquel or Bonds..
A pack of Topps friggin baseball cards costs $2.99(and up) now and they dont come with gum!

to make it even more lame.. they sell "team packs" a whole packaged set of your favorite team. i was like "are you kidding?" that takes the whole fun and mystery out of getting packs of cards. i know they had "full sets" and "boxes" of cards back in the day, but they were way expensive. The Giants 2007 team pack was like two bucks more than a regular pack.

maybe i'm getting way too emotional about this but damn.

to top it all off, i bought a pack for shits n giggles. I got an A Rod card and some other names i'd heard of. no Giants, but the real fucked part is that one of the corners in the whole pack was bent. like someone dropped the pack or something. so much for "out of the pack mint condition"

if i actually collected cards i think i might have taken the pack back. yea when i was like 12 I'd have been majorly pissed. I remember when i was a kid taking my collection to the local card shop/antique store. I had the price guides and stuff so i knew this one card i had was worth a certain amount but the bitch at the shop said they could only give me a lower amount because of a flaw... i was pissed but whatever.

a week later i went in and saw my card there, and they were selling it for the amount i wanted to get for it. bastards. way to go, you ripped off a kid!

i was jaded for a while after that. needless to say, i still have my baseball cards from back then.. never tried to sell one ever again.

i wonder if they are worth anything? Are baseball cards taking a back seat to other shit.. is the market dominated by Ebay?