Thats one I haven’t forked over for yet. It appears very chunky and I like my cassette players slim for pocket storage so I did not consider it.

Same as it always was with new technology. On a side note, I wish these were still made like they were. New portable cassette players all have the same terrible tape heads and the models from the glory days are really starting to fall to disrepair as time passes. I just had to cannibalize one of my Walkmans to fix the other, only to have the same issue resurface nearly immediately.

Sounds like it has to do with parents giving children phones. Additionally, parents giving children phones with no restrictions on them.