Obsolescence

The things you own end up owning you.

You’ve probably heard that quote before (Fight Club anyone?) or seen this skit by George Carlin.

I really try not to own too much stuff. But it’s not easy. For example, I simply can’t get rid of the hundreds of BMX magazines I collected since 1994, even though I don’t read them anymore. I also have quite the collection of videogames that I rarely play.

Or this. People born before the noughties have gone through a couple of technological changes. When I was little, I still had black & white tv. Ok, maybe that’s due to my parents taking time to adopt color tv (1968… I mean, come on!). Now we have HD broadcasting and 4k tv sets. Video storage medias have also evolved. I still have a dozen VHS cassettes, a couple dozens DVDs and some Blu-ray discs. I kept a VHS player and made sure that I could still hook it up to my current tv set. Which is somewhat dumb because you can find digitized copies on the web (mostly BMX videos) and I also made digital copies myself. My PS3 plays DVDs and Blu-ray discs. It actually is the only DVD player I have, since laptops have gone driveless.

VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to MP4
VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to MP4

The situation with audio storage medias is even crazier. Vinyls were more or less gone when I was a kid. We had cassettes and big-ass walkmen. I remember that our Mom forbade us to fast-forward or rewind our cassettes because it would use batteries too much. One of her many questionable rules. Anyway. When I was a teenager and, like any teenager, got interested in music, CDs were the thing. I still have about 150 of them. At CHF 30 a piece, that’s a considerable fortune for a teenager. Discmen were crap though, even with skip protection. That’s why I kept rocking a walkman until I got my iPod. At first MP3s could only be played on your computer because there weren’t any small or affordable pocket players around. Of course I ripped all my CDs, and even some of my cassettes. Imagine the audio quality. I remember when I was in my freshman year at EPFL I had a 56k dialup connection and it usually took me the whole night to download one MP3. Kids today don’t realize how lucky they are.

Vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3
Vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3

Why do I keep all that stuff that’s basically become useless? Nostalgia? Pride? Lack of trust in the future evolution of technology?