There’s a lot of hardware enshittification, eg removing a lot of commonly used ports from laptops. Also I don’t like the form factor of all these Macbook rip-offs.

I haven’t noticed similar issues with desktop computing, but for laptops, I do prefer older laptops.

Also, so many older devices go to e-waste when they’re perfectly usable. I like to salvage devices when other people don’t want them anymore.

I’m not super into retro tech, but It’s become clear how advancements in technology aren’t strictly positive. The things that get taken away aren’t obvious and they aren’t advertised. Things like ad-free interfaces, fewer privacy concerns, faster loading times because it isn’t running dozens of background requests, less UI friction from popups, modals, and elements shifting on the page, no barrages of notifications, no perverse incentives where the user is the product.

Retro tech isn’t immune to any of those things, but it is refreshing when you return to one of these devices and discover it has features you didn’t realize had been taken from you.

Older tech did stuff for us. Newer tech does stuff to us. If you think everything newer is better, I can understand that, but it probably means you are young and don’t know what tech used to be like. One small way people try to recapture those times is by opting out of all the latest apps and fuckery and using something simpler and retro. For example, the guy who writes the Game of Thrones books does it all on a DOS command line PC. It works for him and has no distractions. No one is going to hack it because it doesn’t have a network cable.

I have no idea why you want to make this about gender identity. Those parts of your question seem to challenge the name of the sub community.

I picked up an old amplifier from my parents, they bought it for their day’s equivalent of 4-500 bucks to use with their LP player, which has since died.

It’s a Scott from the 70s, made in the US, and it somehow now appreciated over inflation if you look at the sale prices on ebay and the like (~700€).

When setting it up i opened it to see if it needed cleaning out, and the insides were pristine, and clearly hand soldered.

The sound is clean as a whistle, it’s compatible with RC cables, and has a standard European plug. Not only does it not need upgrading, it stands head and shoulders over what you can get today for the same price they bought it for.

Sometimes, products made before planned obsolescence were just better.

Why ask strangers on the internet with no context why your friends like something? Wouldn’t your friends be both far more able to explain, because it’s their thing and we don’t know them, and far more interested in explaining, because it’s their thing and people love talking about their passions?

If it does the job, why waste money on new one?

90% of what people do on computers can be done comfortably on 10 year old computers, performance wise. If a device hasn’t fallen apart by now, you can assume that it’s built to last, which isn’t guaranteed with new computers, especially those that you can get at the same price.

By using an older piece of tech that does one thing, you make doing that thing an activity again. As in, it’s a conscious involvement to do that thing now, it’s not just an app or a side feature of some other device.

For instance, I got an iPod Nano a little while ago and just loaded it with the few hundred songs I care to listen to. I use a fraction of the space of the thing if I care to add more music, but now when I want to listen to music I have to use a specific device to do so. It makes it more of a conscious decision to listen to music and, to me, makes me enjoy it more.

It’s fun to take what is considered essentially antiquated “trash” and make something of it, and it’s a relatively cheap way to do computer tinkering, as old tech turns up in pawn shops or scrap yards

Smartphones and tablets manufactured circa 2015 were powerful enough to run many apps and software, and not yet locked down as much as they are now. So there were a lot of custom ROMs and kernels being made for Android and jailbreaking tools for iDevices, allowing you to customize much much more than the manufacturer intended.

And it’s just fun to make something that most people consider “obsolete” perform well, or well enough to be usable.

Not sure what role gender plays into that though.

Older tech can generally be more privacy respecting, a old VCR for example won’t collect analytics on you.

1. Cheap. Why spend the high prices of the latest stuff when you can salvage old things for little to nothing. People will give you tons of outdated things if you ask nicely.

2. Less wasteful. If you can keep old stuff going, you keep it out of a landfill. It also means less new production is needed. In other words…

3. Says fuck you to corporations. Right to repair is a thorn in the side of many greedy business models that push cheaply made products made to be tossed and replaced over and over without a lot of improvement between iterations.

4. It’s something to tinker with. Some people just want plug and play, but others want to rig up some crazy setups and keep them going just to challenge themselves and get bragging rights

5. Vibes. Some people are into old school film cameras, or arcade cabinets, or classic cars, or retro fashion. Playing with relatively ancient technology is just another way of keeping the good parts of the past alive.

Reduce + Reuse + the feeling of being a part of a special club, its kind of lit.

We need way more of this.

Please allow me to broaden the context. I used to be an avid motorcyclist. I had a 2000 BMW R1100, which I could service with a modest set of tools. A more modern BMW appears to be very hostile to home mechanics. Even the screws have a corporate head nowadays. Servicing a BMW has become very expensive, as it requires some extremely specialized mechanics (or so they say). My next motorcycle, if I ever buy one, will NOT be a BMW.

It fits in a trend: consumers are being kept from servicing, upgrading or otherwise extending the lifespan of their devices. Repair a smartphone? Good luck. Swap an SSD in your laptop. Tough, buddy. Want to set up your dishwasher. Sure, download the app, give your GPS coordinates and the birth date of your firstborn and you can set it up.

I find a lot more “soul” in older electronics. So many devices today are a minimalist thing with a touchscreen (or worse, thing controlled by your phone), probably designed to force you into a subscription. At least consumerism from a few decades ago operated by innovating to make you want to buy a new product, rather than designing it to be a trap.

Going back to the “soul” bit: I recently bought a Bang and Olufsen Beosystem 2500 (look it up) for my office. It’s a stereo from the very early 90s that cost thousands of dollars in its day. It sounds amazing, and has little touches that just make it cool. Like motorized glass doors that are motion activated, with warm accent lighting when the unit is on. The tape player didn’t work when I bought it, but I was able to replace the belt and now my childhood Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego soundtrack tape is playable again! And with an Aux input, I can also use it for modern stuff too to take advantage of what we’ve gained in media playback since ~1991.