I agree with all of your points, especially around synths. I'm getting back into making music right now, and the gear lust around physical synths is strong. >

I agree with all of your points, especially around synths. I'm getting back into making music right now, and the gear lust around physical synths is strong. > Vinyl record sales have surpased CD for the first time again not long ago This says something about vinyl but even more about CDs. Vinyl sales are up but still only about a fifth of what they were in 1982. CD sales have plummeted. That makes sense because the form factor really has nothing going for it. It's a digital medium, so in terms of sound quality, it's exactly equivalent to the SD card in your phone. But the latter is about a thousand times bigger, a hundred times smaller, read/write, and can be easily updated from the Internet. CDs are a dead end technology.