Gen Z is engineering an analog future — and it’s at least a $5 billion opportunity

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gen-z-engineering-analog-future-090000793.html

28 Comments

  1. trialofmiles on

    As someone who used tapes extensively the first time around. Tapes are pretty shitty, but have fun.

  2. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of young people in my local music store last time I went. Hope it continues.

  3. mistertickertape on

    There are two things that are driving this – a lack of ownership of anything digital, and a desire for a more tactile world. I recently started using a discman again and … I love it. I have a ton of CD’s and I can buy them for CHEAP in NYC and I like being forced to curate what I carry with me. I was already a huge vinyl nerd.

    I’m in my early 40’s but there is a culture shift going on in younger people that want to own and make their own physical media – it started with vinyl, and it’s carrying over to cassettes and CD’s even fucking VHS(!).

  4. I’m a college professor. Our newpaper just went back to a print edition after being online only for a few years. The kids insisted. They carry around physical books. There’s a thriving vinyl store in the town and a “listening bar” just opened up. The indie bookstore in town just expanded, and there’s a make your own perfume bar.

    The newest, most popular club on campus is the “ceramics club.” One student said, “You can’t hold your phone while you’re making a vase.”

    And we are not in any way a rich kid school. We cater to first gens.

  5. Millennials did the same thing with vinyl records. It’s not that deep it’s just retro trends.

  6. I don’t think it’s the cause, but I think a bit part of it is the ability of having something that just works for the most part and is simple. Like when I open Spotify which changes layout and even the simple stuff just moves I get annoyed. It feels like they aren’t doing what’s best for UI and instead just do change for the sake of it.

  7. It is not just the kids. My wife and I have had it with products that require apps that go obsolete within a couple years. I just keep buying lower end appliances because I want an actual switch or dial not a touch screen. Its an irony that we can finally afford high end products but because we don’t want everything we own to need wifi connectivity we buy the cheaper ones.

    If I could only easily find a dumb tv I’d be ecstatic. I don’t want a smart one rigged to dump ad after ad at me.

  8. Sea_Perspective6891 on

    It makes sense with DVDs because most streaming services have either paywalled or severely limited/reduced their content lately leaving physical media or piracy as the only two options. I found it weird DVDs were so quick to start going extinct so quickly & it was practically when physical media was just starting to reach its peak.

  9. There’s something ironic about reading an article about how people hate doom scrolling and the modern economy on a site that infinitely scrolls doom articles that are crammed full of scammy ads for the modern economy 🙄

  10. Radiant_Ad3966 on

    Everyone that wants an analog future desires it because it appears like it will be less advertising blasted into your face at every turn. Folks are tired of everything being a sales pitch at all times. And this whole outlook / article on it is more of the same.

    “Here’s a budding shift, how can we market it and take all their money?”

  11. SCUMDOG_MILLIONAIRE on

    Economics aside, we are realizing that the physical tactile process of consuming media is an integral part of the experience. You can only realize this if you grew up analog, switched entirely to digital, then find yourself craving and rebuying physical media.

    There’s also the fact that these digital media companies are introducing all this bullshittery around actually owning digital media – they think just because you purchased something you don’t actually own it.

  12. I just started reading for similar reasons.

    So far I’ve enjoyed Will of the Many (and it’s sequel), and started the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

  13. Maybe we want it to be OUR opportunity and not an opportunity for some rich fuckstick to become richer.

  14. Fickle-Ad2042 on

    Everything after the – is why the present and probably the future fucking sucks so much

  15. JockeyOverHorse on

    My prediction is the generation born today will look back at all these social media influencers and attention seekers and cringe. It will be impossible to explain to them what was wrong with us.

  16. Jpowmoneyprinter on

    Of course it has to be presented from the perspective of possible profitability.

    Younger generations are turning away from supposedly the best part of living in a capitalist society (the consumer technology) and the best angle they can come up with is “but there’s MONEY to be made!”

    It’s so tone deaf it could be good satire, the profit motive turned consumer devices into addictive dopamine machines – let’s find a way to profit off people rejecting this reality.

  17. For anyone who grew up before and during the rise of the modern digital age (thinking smartphones and social media), there were so many conveniences provided and burdens relieved. Now everything didn’t have to be physical and carried around! It became cumbersome to manage your media libraries and bring them with you, even with the rise of iPods and other media players. We got to know the joys of owning and adding to our media libraries but it became cumbersome. The shift away from physical management was a nice evolution, but the water slowly boiled around us. Those who were born much later have grown up watching adults consumed by their devices and I can imagine it isn’t very inspiring. I’m happy to know that the newer generations understand the joys and benefits of physical ownership again.