I think yours is the most proper explanation in this thread as to why if anything is special about tube circuits. The more sane guitarists will commonly speak of "tube compression" - on the power amp side, coming into play as volume is cranked - being the key attribute that is sought after. It is dynamic and noticeable enough that a non-musician could most definitely tell the difference in an A/B test if given a demonstration.
The downside is that all of those 100W amplifiers sitting in hobbyist living rooms often don't get enough power to achieve this without being too loud. The solution is just to buy a smaller amplifier or apply attenuation to the output circuit.
When these types of conversations come around, I'm always a little concerned and disappointed that more people don't hold/verbalize this or a similar attitude. Instead there's a weird amount of armchair moral confidence that I can't understand.
Especially when there are clear politics, we seem to be asking "What makes those people the way they are?" and not "What would it take for me to become one of those people?"
In my household, we sort of accidentally fell into what I feel is a healthy middle ground (for us). Fairly traditional gender roles where I bring home the income and she has ended up focusing on childcare while finishing school. That said, we could definitely stand to optimize some things in regard to workload balancing; my time outside of work consists of us taking turns letting each other rest from or responsibilities e.g. spend time doing absolutely nothing. In a few years, both of our kids will be in school (1 currently is), and she will likely bring home just as much if not more than half of the income when she re-enters the workforce unless I receive a large pay increase between now and then for whatever reason.
Of course it hasn't been a breeze and we've both atrophied in some personal areas of skill due to this specialization. I tend to talk to people like each future action is a step in a project to be completed, then relieve myself of the details of any task I don't play a direct role in. Sometimes useful, sometimes not. She gets a list of things done in the time it takes for me to make a plan of action but is overwhelmed more when considering the large and/or complex tasks and the time management involved, though is otherwise equally proficient. There's some synergy in there that we're still figuring out.
I'm less interested in whether that's true and more interested in the fact that a broader demographic of people now actually care about the soft power inherent in a private social media company that is the sole medium through which millions of people communicate their politics and receive the information and influence that helps form their beliefs.
I was just out of high school during the Snowden leaks and have watched Americans who were at that time indifferent or considered him a traitor continue to spend time on these platforms over the years. The outrage then seems to have existed almost exclusively amongst the paranoid and those who have considered the effects of individual privacy in a democracy. This was always bound to happen, and it seems internally inconsistent to me in a capitalist free market for any individual to only now (post 2016) hold these companies accountable for perceived infringements if that same individual has up until now continued to use these platforms despite the public knowledge.
Put another way, if America's culture of public discourse had been of a higher quality back then, and our political apathy lower, this would not be such a surprise to as many people. It probably would be a non-issue, because we would have utilized any number of other readily available technologies for organization and communication to replace the products built by companies that exist strictly to create revenue for their stakeholders.
Was looking at your username while reading, trying figure out which person from my org you are though we're in different industries. The similarities are uncanny; company size, leadership issues, ops person leaving, which of course is disturbing but makes me feel less crazy.
The downside is that all of those 100W amplifiers sitting in hobbyist living rooms often don't get enough power to achieve this without being too loud. The solution is just to buy a smaller amplifier or apply attenuation to the output circuit.