I have found that sometimes it is nice to have fewer choices when selecting media. It helps prevent analysis paralysis for me.

Yeap, it comes across as anemoia false nostalgia pining for a "utopia" than never existed. I had Weird Al and Metallica on cassette and a cheap-o, bulky Walkman and Koss Porta Pros. It didn't really ever play at a constant speed and ate batteries like they were free. When CDs came out (which was actually around 1981), they were a million times better, but it took forever to get the Discman down to a halfway decent price and not skip like crazy on the slightest bump. A good example of a portable CD player that worked well was the '94 Sony D-828K Car Discman that also wasn't just for cars.

And the 80's and 90's weren't that great. The best thing that happened was George Carlin on pirated analog HBO telling us how Americans were morons and that everything sucked. ;o)

Flash storage bit rots. As do consumer writable optical media. RAID HDD or you ain't got nothing.

Anolog media is just cool. Its like having some WW|| knife or motorbike helmet or vax780 in your youth Cool for teenagers

I've been having a hard time finding an (in-production) mp3 player that doesn't have a web browser.