They deteriorate with time but that said I have tapes from the 80s that are still playable. I’m not sure if there’s a worse rate for that timespan compared to disc-rot for CDs, or failures of digital drives. What ever the format I guess the key is to do backups.

Although I don’t use them day-to-day any more, cassette tapes are what I have the most warmth and nostalgia for because they’re what I grew up with. Messing around with tapes and making mix-tapes were a big part of my childhood and teenage years, difficult to sell to those who never experienced it but I can’t think of any other format that allowed that same level of playfulness and creativity.

Oh right, I was stupid, I see it now.

I don’t get it…

Completely agree. Now my hot take for this thread:

If governments some time in the 90s had decided from the start to ban computer hardware from being sold with pre-installed software then we wouldn’t have this problem. If everyone had to install their own operating system from scratch, which like you say isn’t hard if it’s taught, it would have killed the mystery around computing and people would feel ownership over their computers and computing.