They were great for audiobooks though[1], because they have a physical place marker that doesn't reset when it's removed from the player (unlike CDs), they have

They were great for audiobooks though[1], because they have a physical place marker that doesn't reset when it's removed from the player (unlike CDs), they have fairly high capacity, it's easy to rewind or fast forward, they're easy to jam into the car radio without looking while driving (unlike CDs), and they can kick around a car without getting scratched (unlike CDs). Audio quality isn't super, but it's fine for spoken word. Oh, and unrelated to audiobooks, making self-recordings is dead easy. I have a copy of a cassette from the late 1960s of my 10-year old uncle singing a hymn before he died the following year, and I have the same of my brother from the early 2000s before he died this year. I treasure these recordings, which probably wouldn't exist if recording wasn't as simple as popping a blank cassette in and hitting the record button—unlike, say, burning a CD. So while I don't use cassettes anymore (they've all been digitized), I still think it's a great format. -- 1 - Which might be why they continued to be used for audiobooks until the early- or mid-2000s.