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?

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

For me at least it’s the simplicity. Not that I understand everything going on inside of it, but I could and knowledge is often times readily available.

Another point i could think of is that the feature set is often times more manageable, you are more in control of what it does or does not.

Aside from what everyone else’s already mentioned, there’s the whole hassle of setting up a new device - debloating, tweaking the settings, etc. Why go through the pain of adjusting to a new device when the old one works just fine?

• they are affordable (better to play with 10 different old devices than 1 new device, isn’t costly when you break it)
• usually more tinkerable (older devices tend to be more modular or easier to repair, only older iphones can be jailbroken, android custom rom scene is basically dead now, etc)
• fun to make old shits do near impossible stuff (like overclocking a pentium 4 for giggles)

I agree with all the other commenters.

On a personal take, I have two notes.

1. it’s an ideological stance and part of my consumer activism. With older tech, I mostly know what the hardware does, what the software does and I can expect nothing more or less than advertised. With today’s technology, the Terms of Service are often written in a way that is hard for the end user to understand. Since the end user simply wishes to use their^[1] technology, a lot of people simply accept the terms without having understood them, which in turn forces them and their data to become the product they never agreed to become. A subscription to Netflix forces me to hand over some undefined information and I cannot rely on consistency in image quality. Setting up my own media player “forces” me to understand fully what it does, how it does it and I can expect consistency in regards to image quality.

2. older tech allows me to do one thing, and I feel like it has freed me of the dopamine addiction enducing toxic doomscrolling and consumerism that comes with multi purpose technologies.

Why do I prefer wearing the clothes and shoes that I’ve already broken in and gotten used to instead of crisp new items just out of the store? Guess I’ll never know

Depending on the age of the hardware it is likely to have more resources for documentation, be easier to physically modify, and often more examples of other people messing with it to use for inspiration. Then there is the affordability factor, where a lot of older tech can be found cheap or very free.

For example, old alarm clocks are easily opened with a screwdriver, simple enough to repair or modify, and there are often scanned user and tech manuals online. Plus they are common to find really cheap as people replace them with more modern disposable ones.

PCs are similar, I had fun monkeying around with an old 486 when I was gaming on a more modern AMD build because running Linux on something that couldn’t handle modern windows was fun! Plus it was easier to know what was what and not worrying about breaking my primary rig meant tinkering and trying things out wasn’t a worry.

Gender identity doesn’t really play into it.

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

We need way more of this.

I agree with the general takes here, and can add one for specific situations. I have some very old keyboards, and frankly even my newer ones rely on designs that are over 40 years old. In this particular case, I find the old tech superior, because they simply feel nicer to type on, and that’s what a keyboard is for.

I also have quite a few fountain pens, but whereas with a little effort the keyboards are as good or better than an average modern model, I’ll admit there is a fussiness and mess with fountain pens you have to weigh against the nicer writing experience.

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.

Find me a new phone with dual front facing speakers and I’ll give up my pixel 3.

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

I can’t think of a new thing since covid that seems any better than the stuff before. Im really not sure if your talking less than a decade old or 30 year old tech honestly.

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.