Maybe because people weren't buying pre-recorded MiniDiscs? But as far as I can tell, that wasn't the point...
In the late 90s I had a Sharp 722 (in champagne gold iirc) and you could plug that thing into a pair of decks (UK Garage at that time) and get rich, beautiful sound out of it – fully captured the texture of the vinyl.
CDs were awkward, needed to lie horizontal, and prone to skipping and getting scratched up.
MiniDisc was never a replacement for CDs, but a replacement for cassettes – and at that, they were great.
There was something quite nice about the audible quality of MiniDisc compression.
Is this past year of COVID to blame? I had been rekindling some nostalgia for my brief foray into MiniDisc over two decades ago (it had been too brief). And then my daughter, born after the iPod but likely channelling part of that retro zeitgeist, wanted to experiment with/explore cassette tapes. No, no, MiniDisc, I said. And then I proceeded to buy way too many of the devices on eBay.
I have a bigger collection now of both players and discs than I did when I first dipped my toe into MiniDisc.
I think both she and I enjoy mix-tape vs. playlist. Trying to pick songs to fit within 80 or 74 minutes.
And then somehow the "I want to hear something mellow" and then the physical insertion of a disc.... Something tangible in an increasingly intangible world?
In the late 90s I had a Sharp 722 (in champagne gold iirc) and you could plug that thing into a pair of decks (UK Garage at that time) and get rich, beautiful sound out of it – fully captured the texture of the vinyl.
CDs were awkward, needed to lie horizontal, and prone to skipping and getting scratched up.
MiniDisc was never a replacement for CDs, but a replacement for cassettes – and at that, they were great.