Enshitification has been a long slow burn, boiling the frog so we don't notice.

i was explaining to a college student about mp3 players and they thought they sounded like some amazing new product coming down the pipeline. it made me feel super old and super sad for all that tech companies have robbed from us

Sony phones have headphones jacks.

Back in the day, I had one that looked like this and was essentially built around an AA battery, which was great since you could always carry a spare.

Have the same in black, doesn't even need any special software to load songs on it, unlike some other creative products.

Still have my 120G Zune and 16G Zune HD, both of which still work flawlessly. It's wild to think what we left behind

Dankpods is that you

I think people are forgetting you can still buy players like this. -With a mini jack, lots of space, drag and drop to transfer music....

https://amazon.de/dp/B0CJFRSGKH

It's how small things can be when they don't need a screen

The old Creative MuVo would pull apart, exposing a male USB connector for easy drag & drop loading of MP3s. Such a great design.

How does Scarlet Fire sound on it?

Aw man I wish I still had my old mp3 players. I had a round Sony one that was awesome, I could navigate songs/albums in my pocket without looking at the screen.

The only drawback is that it only holds 1GB... my old CD rips had to be compressed to hell and back.

You may be able to crack it open and upgrade that storage. I have a similar little MP3 player with 16GB on an internal microSD card. It's possbile to swap out the internals.

I started using something similar recently. I started buying music on indie sites and I have a closer relationship with my music. I keep listening to the same things since my library is still small. Because of that I remember the lyrics, know the names of favorite tracks or hum the songs during the day.

With phones not having the 3.5mm jack these days it sort of makes sense to have a separate 3.5mm jack device even.

The one I got is a Fiio Snowsky Echo Mini (2025) that is similarly old school - no Wi-Fi, just USB file transfer upload. Listening to music on a smartphone is mentally draining in comparison.

The player Is not such a good deal as it was before the Fiio tariff-related price hike, when it was around 40€, but eh. The battery is soldered on despite the case having a "stylistic" battery cover on the case. Supposedly on the inside it's still a standardized battery cell, so if you unscrew the case it should still be serviceable.

There are MP3 players which are simple and Digital Audio Players (DAPs) which are supposed to be more hi-fi. In Europe, AGPTEK is available (can't vouch, but see A52PL, C2S, U5PL) too. In the US, a simple modern iPod clone seems to be the Innioasis Y1. SanDisk (Western Digital) seems to have stopped making their Clip line and they're hard to find used where I'm from.

There's also a custom firmware for some DAPs/MP3 players called rockbox, here's the supported device list https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/TargetStatus

I got this for my girlfriend. If I recall it held about 100 CDs worth of music—it had a small hard drive in it. Up until that point she had used a portable CD player in her car. I remember it being a little finicky, but ultimately working well.

I've been thinking of picking up something I can install rockbox on for a while, but I've been getting a lot of mileage out of Youtube Music Revanced (hacked yt music app with no ads without paying for premium).

That said,I've been putting off replacing my phone (screen is held on with tape) because I can't easily get a new one with a headphone jack. So maybe new phone without, use bluetooth and ytmusic vanced in the car, then a dedicated old school mp3 player for non-car listening.

I've got an iPod Classic 160Gb, from 2007 I think. Still runs fine, synchs and everything. I hate everything Apple about it - the weird 12-pin connection, having to use iTunes, the fact that it's been discontinued - but otherwise it's grand. I got it a wee Bluetooth dongle that fits into the headphone jack so I can listen on my hearing aids.

I'm almost scared to use it, because it would be hard to replace. I'm often out of phone signal range, and it's good to have all my music, audio books, podcasts etc still available. What else can do this? The Cloud is useless without a phone signal.

I miss Creative. Best computer speakers I ever had. Also when everyone at school was rocking a 4gb iPod they got at the mall for hundreds of dollars and had to choose which music they wanted, I was rocking this puppy for like $100 off of eBay with my entire library on it. Notice it's 30gb! It also doubled as a portable hard drive. This is back when corporations did everything they could to make a good product. Not too sure, given the quality difference, why apple thrived and companies like creative died.

+1 on dedicated music players. I can listen to music for hours without worrying that my phone is gonna die.

+1 000 000 on A Lifetime Of Adventure. Fantastic song.

You determine what’s acceptable but what you accept, and people keep buying things that are objectively worse.

I still have my Sansa Clip+ and Creative Zen and they work great to this day. Very simple to use and the Clip even has custom firmware that does all sorts of cool stuff. It even plays Doom!

I've got a 1GB Insignia Sport mp3 player from 2006 or 2007 that I check every few years and still worked last time I used it. Good for audiobooks or maybe 80 songs on shuffle. I got a lot of mileage out of it over the years, lovely little bit of electronics.

This makes me want to bust out my first gen iPod shuffle.