Why do hipsters prefer analog?

I love those photographs of twentysomething hipsters, in full regalia, on the patio of some cafe or whatever, listening to vinyl on a portable turntable.

That’s hilarious.  It conjures David Attenborough: 

“The hipster congregates in cafes, where his public display of extremely inconvenient but socially advantageous music-listening signals his credentials.  Yes, the hipster could experience far superior audio fidelity through technology of vastly cheaper, vastly more convenient means, and could indeed reserve the turntable for more convenient at-home listening, but then there would be no one there to observe him doing so…”

@mrteeves That’s when I started buying records also.  Circa ‘05.  This was the all-time nadir of vinyl sales.  Man alive, if I knew then what I know now. 
I would walk out of record stores in Seattle with 10 LPs in my bag, each one for about $1.  Even with my vast uptick in finicky-ness and extensive purging of sub-par pressings for the past 5-odd years, I still have some of those great-sounding pressings I got for $1.  They would command 20x-30x the price now. 

@noromance That’s funny.  That’s like putting fresh oysters in the microwave.

The charge of, “y’all just a bunch of curmudgeons yelling, ‘get off my lawn!” I reject.

People say, “easy now, these people keep the format alive.”  Do they?  For whom?  Affluent people who can afford ridiculous prices?  People who can afford a $50 vinyl record to take home and slap down on a $100 TT? (because they don’t care to understand how vinyl playback actually works)

What about the people that “kept the format alive” in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s?  How integral were they to the format’s survival?  How grateful should they be for people exponentially jacking up the price of their beloved commodities, so those people may enjoy the cachet vinyl affords them, only for them to ultimately carve the grooves to smithereens with garbage gear?  I would say asking those people to, “be grateful for hipsters” is a bit much.

Making fun of hipsters is fun.  Everyone loves it.  No harm, no foul, as I see it. 
 

@noromance That seems like a good deed you did.

You probably contributed to that person’s improved quality of life.

My friend had enjoyed listening to vinyl on my system.  He started asking about what he should get, gear-wise.  I wanted him to neither be intimidated by the price/inconvenience of vinyl playback nor end up with gear that would cause him to miss out on what vinyl is.  I had some disposable income at the time, consider him a dear friend, so I bought him a $500 AT-LP140XP for his b-day.  It’s a tough thing to care about music playback but also not be rich.  I don’t have a lot of experience with turntables in the $200-$400 range, there may well be some gems, but I feel something hardy is best to start with for a music fan.  That purchase may have been I’ll-informed, but I had a friend who listened to an extremely modest system with the cheapest TT in the AT-LP line (about $150) and was surprised how decent the sound was.  I figured the 140XP would be a good place for a discerning music fan to start without breaking the bank or settling for something inadequate.