Personally I don't like most of those retro computing Youtubers. They are being perceived as all knowing gods by their subscribers, while in reality they share a lot of misinformation, tutorials/repair/DIY videos are often very amateurish (they don't show you what for tools they use, how they use them, where they got their information from, they expect you to have an electronics engineering degree etc.), the intros are often way too long (you think that I'm going to listen 20 minutes to your background story?), they hype stuff that's mediocre, they downplay stuff that's actually good, they tell what 'a good price' for a product is or for what they have bought something a million years ago, they are always begging for donations, some advertise stuff (that I'm not interested in) for minutes, and to be fair I just don't like watching old, bald, fat, grey bearded dudes with a soldering iron. Sorry.
Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:
So I didn't read all of the pages yet, but about LGR he recently did make a new thrifting vid which was fun to watch, but also explains exactly that the reason why he doesn't post a lot of these anymore is because thrift stores barely have anything worthwhile retro-related anymore. I'm experiencing the exact same thing. This has been going on since before covid even.
Depends on what you are looking for. Computer hardware, especially vintage, has been scarce in thrift stores for the last 15 years or so (Netherlands). I think that the chain stores have rules about computer hardware, that could be one of the reasons why so little is being offered on the shelves. Maybe they just sell pretty much anything computer related to a recycler. Maybe people simply don't bring old computers to thrift stores anymore.
Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:
There's multiple reasons for this afaics, but it boils down to higher demand and less supply.
The gandmas attic finds have been drying out for a long time. The majority of systems I find or see these days are systems that were probably from another hobbist of other PC that had a very specialized task.
Granddad is dying or is dead. Your uncles? They are retired too and have cleared their attics years ago. We are getting older too.
Tetrium wrote on 2024-01-28, 19:13:
And not just customers will scoop up all the nicer stuff (and hope to make a profit off of it) but this includes second hand stores as well to some degree where they will also skimp the cream off of the milk before putting the milk for display.
After years in this space I strongly believe that the majority of vintage computer enthusiasts are actually people who want to invest their savings in nice nostalgic stuff to flip for profit at a later time. Lots of IT guys with way too much money who simply don't know what to do with it. The other group are hoarders (or tinkerers as they like to call themselves), basically broke folks who want as much as possible for as little as possible to fill their emptyness, kill time and possibly to also flip their stuff for profit at a later time. People on this forum probably don't like these truths. Call me a conspiracy nut.
Yeah, certainly, thrift stores / second hand stores need to earn money to pay their bills. They can't afford to sell the stuff they get for free for a couple pennies. That ain't enough.