There's something I recently felt deep and weird about. The society is a double rotating system. We live, we want to solve problems, the solutions become a new ground replacing the past, not solving it.
When I look at old tech (big hifi tuner, vu meters, etc), I still deeply love it. The electro mechanical beauty is still there. Same for video games, or old software (I love win3.1 and 95 to bits, if I could patch the flawed core without changing the UX of that period I'd do it...). Without the commercial need to appeal money that fueled future versions like XP or Vista.
I saw things like the pico8 project, which gives a somehow modern hardware but with 8bit mindset: low res, 256 colors. People made damn beautiful games out of it. Really cool animations, gameplay, design. No need for a PS4 pro. My new pleasure is tweaking old platforms to give them "modern" day usage. Like retrofitting BT in a car radio. Or modding an old HP calc (longer battery, usb).
Sony messed it up when they bought a movie and music studio, and started to hobble their own devices. The MD was awesome, worked for 40 hours on one battery, could to digital recording and replaying.
Damn you sony.
This is pure nostalgia. Bill Gates has always been about the money from day one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
Bill Gates largely made his fortune by creating an operating system that OEM's would want to ship with their computer. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but Windows 3.1 and 95 were absolutely made for and to attract money.
Lastly, remember how it felt to listen to a tape. You didn't want to skip, so you just let the music play and go with the flow.
All of this is the paradox of choice and free will. We think we want ability to do exactly all we want when we want but it turns out it's not so clear cut.
Something about holding music in your hands, feeling a drive seek the next track, pressing physical buttons to control playback -- it all feels terrific, and I didn't realize until this conversation that there's a whole generation who hasn't experienced that.
BTW those minidisc players still go for $200-400 on ebay!