The cassette celebrates its comeback, but is thwarted by its own success
It's back in fashion: the cassette. After the format almost died out in the 2000s, tapes have been selling better again in recent years. But now trouble is looming: a material for the production of cassettes cannot currently be supplied.
What times those were: As a child in the 80s, I listened to Kasperli on cassettes, as a prepubescent smart arse in the early/mid 90s I listened to ZZ Top and finally, as a teenager, I made myself fat hip-hop mixtapes until 2000. I still love the medium today. So it's all the more pleasing for people like me to hear that: Cassette sales are picking up again. In the USA, 23 per cent more cassettes were sold in 2018 than in the previous year. In the same year, the British even bought 125 per cent more tapes than in 2017 - a whole 50,000. Compared to the 83 million cassettes that the British bought in 1989, this figure is ridiculous, but the increase is nevertheless remarkable.
Cassettes are probably celebrating their revival due to their pop culture mention in "Guardians of the Galaxy" or "Stranger Things". The endearing rectangles are still produced by two companies today: National Audio from the States and Mulann from France. As cassettes are now niche products, the materials needed to manufacture them are no longer produced in huge quantities. Iron oxide, which is required for the production of type 1 tapes, is only produced by one company. And that company has been closed for renovation since the beginning of 2019. This is leading to a bottleneck for manufacturers, whose iron oxide supplies are slowly dwindling.
Because warehouses are currently full, customers shouldn't feel any of this at the moment. And manufacturers can also be hopeful: The factory that manufactures the iron oxide should reopen soon. So if you love tapes, you should buy them now.
After this news from 1989, I now return to digitec magazine in 2019.
From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.