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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

This is also true for consumers. I don't own a single 4k or HDR display. I probably won't own an HDR display until my TV dies, and I probably won't own a 4k display until I replace my work screen, at which point I'll also replace one of my home screens so I can remote into it without scaling.

People in the HN echo chamber over-estimate hardware adoption rates. For example, there are millions of people who went straight from CDs to streaming, without hitting the iPod era.

A few years ago on HN, there was someone who couldn't wrap their brain around the notion that even though VCRs were invented in the early 1960's that in 1980, not everyone owned one, or if they did, they only had one for the whole family.

Normal people aren't magpies who trash their kit every time something shiny comes along.

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> A few years ago on HN, there was someone who couldn't wrap their brain around the notion that even though VCRs were invented in the early 1960's that in 1980, not everyone owned one, or if they did, they only had one for the whole family.

Point of clarification: While the technology behind the VCR was invented in the '50s and matured in the '60s, consumer-grade video tape systems weren't really a thing until Betamax and VHS arrived in 1975 and 1976 respectively.

Early VCRs were also incredibly expensive, with prices ranging from $3,500 to almost $10,000 after adjusting for inflation. Just buying into the VHS ecosystem at the entry level was a similar investment to buying an Apple Vision Pro today.

Exactly my point. But people on HN, especially the person I referenced, don't understand that we didn't just throw stuff away and go into debt to buy the latest gadgets because we were told to.

>there are millions of people who went straight from CDs to streaming, without hitting the iPod era

Who?

There was about a decade there where everyone who had the slightest interest in music had an mp3 player of some kind, at least in the 15-30 age bracket.

I don't know if I count, but I never owned a dedicated MP3 player[1], I listened to MP3s on my computer, but used CDs and cassettes while on the move, until I got an android phone that had enough storage to put my music collection on.

1: Well my car would play MP3s burned to CDs in its CD player; not sure if that counts.

My father, for one. He was entirely happy with radio in the car and CDs at home.

I imagine this depends a LOT on your specific age and what you were doing in the 00's when MP3 player usage peaked.

I finished high school in 2001 and didn't immediately go to college, so I just didn't have a need for a personal music player anymore. I was nearly always at home or at work, and I drove a car that actually had an MP3 CD player. I felt no need to get an iPod.

In 2009, I started going to college, but then also got my first smartphone, the Motorola Droid, which acted as my portable MP3 player for when I was studying in the library or taking mass transit.

If you were going to school or taking mass transit in the middle of the '00s, then you were probably more likely to have a dedicated MP3 player.

I skipped 2 generations for portable music : went straight from cassette to smartphone with MP3 (and radio).

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