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Comment by lemax | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I guess this take is tempting for a technologist, but Gen Z is buying iPods and walking around in wired headphones because it's cool and nostalgic, not because of usability. Cycles of nostalgia are well understood to be getting smaller. The creative industry is creating new things less frequently and referring back sooner (the old 20 year cycle of fashion repeating itself is contracting). There is an element of disenchantment, of wanting to disconnect from the present, but that has always sort of been there as people reached for vintage cameras, record players, and old clothes in the niche cultural movements that have preceded the current Gen Z 2000's obsession that's happening.

see https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1081115609/from-tumblrcore-to...

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> walking around in wired headphones because it's cool and nostalgic, not because of usability

Can only speak for myself, but I purchased some $15 wired USB-C earbuds to use on flights while the Airpods were charging.

And I've been increasingly just using them. The Airpods would often not connect in one ear without a few tries, and the pairing was a pain (disabled the auto-pairing as that was even worse), even on a medium-length flight I'd have to charge them at least once, and I'd often find a way to fidget with the case and have everything disconnect.

I think I overestimated how much value their noise canceling or audio quality was bringing me when I mostly used them for podcasts.

Wireless earbuds are convenient sometimes, but that comes at the price of inconvenience other times (thinking about charging and connecting).

I think the noise canceling is overhyped to oblivion. Sound isolation with good tips has been more than fine since the 2000s, and most of the annoying, hard-to-block noise comes from physical transfer via vibration anyway.

Aren't we roughly right on schedule for 20 years? Plus or minus a few years here and there (giant jeans, for instance, were more 90s, which is 30 years now. lots of 90s or even 80s influences still popping up in fashion that were definitely not there 10 years ago).

The article has a niche example of some pulls from 2014 too, but the dominant thread is older. 2004 kids not-infrequently went through Nirvana/Pearl Jam grungy phases too for a 10 year loop.

iPods certainly are 20-25 years ago. iPhones and iPod Touches are about to hit 20. N64s are 30.

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