The OP's question is a valid one and goes well beyond the local evidence of healthy record shops and - perhaps unhealthy - vinyl record prices.
In our current 'on demand' society, where everything offered as a 'service' is just one screen touch away, the vinyl record is a peculiar anomaly that exists on the 'lunatic fringe'. It's just a nostalgic hobby in an age of music streaming, just like oldtimer classic cars in an age of transport 'as a service' (from Uber all the way to automated vehicles).
So this 'Vinyl Revival' should not be taken too seriously. It has somehow managed to reinvent itself from a 20th century mainstream music carrier into a 21st century lifestyle 'object', being made 'cool' again by a 'post-vinyl' generation of DJ's and hipsters. So it is unlikely to go away entirely, but growing back into a mainstream product category? Forget it.
At the same time the last generation who grew up with vinyl records is becoming of age. Retrospective nostalgia sets in and - possibly - fuelled by the 'coolness' of vinyl with their offspring they have returned to it as well. So that's at least two generations showing a - new and renewed - interest in vinyl records.
That might go some way in explaining the 'revival', both of the number of new vinyl records being (re)issued as well as the amount of playback equipment put on the market today. But as yet I don't see market forces creating a vinyl 'bubble'......
In our current 'on demand' society, where everything offered as a 'service' is just one screen touch away, the vinyl record is a peculiar anomaly that exists on the 'lunatic fringe'. It's just a nostalgic hobby in an age of music streaming, just like oldtimer classic cars in an age of transport 'as a service' (from Uber all the way to automated vehicles).
So this 'Vinyl Revival' should not be taken too seriously. It has somehow managed to reinvent itself from a 20th century mainstream music carrier into a 21st century lifestyle 'object', being made 'cool' again by a 'post-vinyl' generation of DJ's and hipsters. So it is unlikely to go away entirely, but growing back into a mainstream product category? Forget it.
At the same time the last generation who grew up with vinyl records is becoming of age. Retrospective nostalgia sets in and - possibly - fuelled by the 'coolness' of vinyl with their offspring they have returned to it as well. So that's at least two generations showing a - new and renewed - interest in vinyl records.
That might go some way in explaining the 'revival', both of the number of new vinyl records being (re)issued as well as the amount of playback equipment put on the market today. But as yet I don't see market forces creating a vinyl 'bubble'......