To Demo or Not to Demo

I've mentioned before the act of doing a "demo", something that apparently almost all signed bands used to do back in the day in order to present a new album to their record label.  Basically, the band would record all of the material that they had written in a simpler, cheaper manner, then present it to the label, a producer would then be hired, time would be booked in a recording studio, and then the actual album we all know and love would be recorded.  In essence, the album would be recorded twice...and this concept still puzzles me slightly.  It's hard enough to record an album once but to do it twice??

This whole topic came up via a discussion with MWP in which I initially misunderstood what he meant by the term "demo".  After thinking on it more, though, and doing a bit of investigation, I got his point although I'm still not sure that I actually agree with the whole process of recording an album twice.

And so, I stumbled upon the below this week in which the band the Connells just shared the original "demo" version of the song "Carry My Picture" alongside the album version.  I find this whole thing very interesting because apart from the obvious lyric changes for the refrain I'm not entirely sure that, as a fan, I would have minded if they had just released the original demo version on the album.  Now, I will say with a caveat that I'm only listening to this through shabby computer-y speakers and not headphones so I could be missing something very major (and that's because I can't yet put headphones back over my right ear at this point).  Here's the link if you want to check it out:  https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-connells-releasing-ring-30th-anniversary-edition-listen-to-carry-my-picture-demo/

I've heard a few demo versions of songs over the years and I find that usually the original demo version has more spunk and life to it, mainly because it's not over produced.  Rarely do the demos suffer that much from sonic quality, though, which is what I would have originally thought.  One famous instance of demo vs. album version that I still remember is when R.E.M.'s longtime manager said that he greatly preferred the demo/"original" version of "Radio Free Europe" to the album one, and after hearing it (and not being sure if I totally agree personally), I will say that the energy level of the demo differs greatly from the version on "Murmur" so I can sort of understand where he's coming from.

What are your thoughts on this?  In this day and age, with the rise and prominence of the home based recording studio, do demos really make any sense any longer or is it just a way to either a) work on some additional albeit not completely necessary small details in the crafting of a song or b) a way for "real" recording studios, labels, etc., to make cash?