>> I know that this is a joke, but let's remember to be inclusive and kind to our younger readers and take the time to explain (reiterate even) what pieces of old tech are, and what they were used for.
Expect it's not even funny, it's just super cringey and reeks of gatekeeping and condescension.
(I personally enjoyed the jokes)
It's humor not a joke. There's deep wonderment at how much the world has changed behind it. A 16GB thumb drive holds 10,000 times more information. A floppy disk doesn't even have the most rudimentary electronics built in. You can't even turn one on.
The problematic part is "for the younger readers out there." Leave that out and it's fine. Replace it with "Fuck, I'm old" and it's pretty good.
Technical articles are (well) technical and the author is not responsible for explaining what a floppy disk is in a world where google and wikipedia are eleven keystrokes away. The reader has to work too.
I feel a better way to be jokey about the old tech, is to just be amazed at it. Folks know how to google something when they don't know what it is
Those four disks cost less than $1 each, and each individual one holds over one million bytes? Amazing.
They sound so useful that I bet people built whole collections of them, including devices just for organizing and protecting.
I can even imagine a hobby industry of unneeded tools for dealing with them.
I know that this is a joke, but let's remember to be inclusive and kind to our younger readers and take the time to explain (reiterate even) what pieces of old tech are, and what they were used for.
Computers have a long and complicated history. And the technical parts are being abstracted away more and more.
I think it's important to help people understand how we got to where we are today, and why it is (or isn't) an improvement from the way things used to be.