Where to draw the line when old tech is no longer "worth" saving?

[Dequake]

Maybe a clickbaity title, but I had to. Before I get into the meat of this, I want to tell a little story.

When I was in high school, I was a little rat. My favorite pasttime between classes was to hang around in one of the waste deposit rooms and dig around for old tech. We technically weren't allowed to do this, but I didn't care. And the janitor didn't care either, in fact, he would let me know when new stuff was getting thrown out. He even told me the schedule that the garbage truck comes, so I know when to strike before stuff disappears. This culminated in me dragging home, on the subway, over the course of a year, the following:

3 cassette decks
1 VHS/DVD Player
1 VHS Shoulder Mounted Camcorder
2 Stereo Decks
3 Vinyl Players
3 Tandberg Tape Players
4 Hard Drives
2 CD ROM Readers
2 Cameras
1 Apple Home Computer
And finally, 1 Office Chair.

Sounds great right? It's some awesome stuff. I love hoarding this kinda shit, even though my classmates always would look at me funny. Problem is, as most of you could predict, a lot of it was broken in some way. Not in an unfixable way though, so the stuff stuck around, gathering dust.

After a few years of not knowing what to do with all this, I started selling some of it off. But one thing, I never could get rid of. One of those cameras. It's a SONY Cybershot DSC-P9. It just speaks to me. Like a cursed amulet...use me...take pictures of your friends...forever...

Nevertheless, I know the thing works, or at least did at one point. It turned on, and I could look at the images. Now it's powered down obviously, as I don't have the charger. In fact, SONY designed their own, proprietary charger. Yeah, remember when that was a thing? The charger costs a bunch, of course. External chargers for the detachable battery costs a bunch. Now yeah, they exist out there, and can be bought, but is it worth it? How much use will that get me? What do I do once that charger dies, and buying another one is even more expensive?! IS IT EVEN WORTH IT!!!!
And this isn't even a thing with this camera. Old tech, while everyone sings its praises, has a lot of problems. Problems that we invented ourselves, sure, but problems nonetheless. The stuff is doomed to be E-waste sooner or later. How much effort will I go through to use the stuff?

But on the other hand, if I don't, who will? And honestly, how much of our modern stuff doesn't end up as E-waste too...

My point is, when do you give up? When do you throw in the towel, and accept that something just isn't worth saving. Because that point must come, sooner or later.
Most of the shit that I dragged out of that dumpster has been sold for a pittance or thrown away. It's interesting stuff, but impossible to find a use for without considerable time investment and money. It's a shame really. But what do you think?

[Melooon]

This article is doing the rounds on Mastodon and it's well worth a read: https://マリウス.com/hold-on-to-your-hardware/

My answer is that every tool for creation is a tool of freedom; personal freedom, technological freedom and the right to create, to capture, and to broadcast. Using technology from a past era, especially when you have to work with its flaws, is also a creative act, its a way of seeing the world differently and therefor thinking about the world differently. I really believe that people become the tools they use, your personality and your life is partly created by the tech in your life. Most people don't take conscious control of that process, they allow companies to turn them into something else with every new upgrade (that's basically what Robots (2005) is about  ) - using old tech is one way to break out of that cycle and reclaim yourself.

However, as you say, its not limitless! Old tech should be a tool for personal freedom, but if it gets to the point that you have so much old junk around you than you feel oppressed or unable to create, then its doing the opposite of what it should. That's when its time to pass it on.

So when you say "when do you give up", that's giving up on yourself, so the answer is never! But where do you draw the line is an important question, and it will depend on you, the space you have (mentally and physically) and what you can realistically accomplish with the tools you have.

An old camera in the hands of the right person is the best thing they could ever have, in the hands of the wrong person, its just an old camera. I really think you should get away from the idea of old tech being something you either horde or profit from, because its not about you; its about giving people the power to be themselves. That's where you'll find value, and that's the calling of an old-tech enthusiast. The best thing you can do in life is to empower the people around you.

As for when is it too late to save a piece of tech, there are a few basic questions. Is it repairable by you? Is it repairable by someone else? Can you get it to someone who can repair it? Is there someone who can use it in its broken state? My experience is that, 90% of the time, if it was ever good in the past, its still good and savable today - you might not always see its worth, or its worth may not become evident for a few more years, but worth never goes away.

[pepper]

Well said Melon!

I have a similar urge to hold onto old tech, either workable or not. I have a bunch of old hard drives, graphics cards, old laptops, peripherals, etc. However, I don't see this as a problem I need to deal with, anything I have that's usable still is there in case I have a project that can use it. Maybe I'd like to turn some old wireless routers into an always-online server for music and make my own version of Spotify, maybe I want to set up a weather satellite uplink and need some peripherals? It's handy to have those things lying around when a project comes around, so I don't need to buy the same sort of thing on eBay and in the process generate waste (transport, logistics, etc).

That said, I would draw the line if the things I keep around become clutter, fill my space in a way that negatively impacts my life or my partner's life, or my cat's for that matter. If I have something that's completely broken, I may keep it around for parts, but I have found myself donating broken equipment, especially old cameras, to local repair shops for parts. Aside from the joy I get from using old analog technology or being very extra about my technology, I also strive to not contribute to waste as best I can.