Growing up in the 60's the 8 track was all the rage. I also remember that leaving your tapes in your car for too long in hot Texas melted the the idler wheel in the cartridge and the unit ate your tape...!
Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track
Neil Postman once said,
"Anyone who has studied the history of technology knows that technological change is always a Faustian bargain: Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided."
I'm pretty sure that we know that the 8-track was more bad than good.
Question for audiophiles here who might know -- was there anything good about 8-track technology that was lost when it went extinct? And what was that good, audio-wise, specifically?