Comment by angry_octet

This unfortunately misses the hidden benefit of cassette players -- sharing tapes with friends. Without the network effect it is just an elaborate way to listen to your own tapes, but with all the wow, flutter and hiss of analog tape.

Music also used to be scarce. Tapes/CDs were expensive, recording off the radio requires time coordination and is incredibly linear. Assembling a mix tape involved hours of effort. Then the tape would wear out, or suffer from noise from generational copying. Music was finite.

Now with a bit of coaxing an LLM will make you a mixtape from spotify or youtube. We have no scarcity, no attention, no room for individual taste.