Genuine question: how much of your gear buying is really about making music, and how much is about the feeling of buying?

I’m a hobbyist musician and a former working musician, and I have a background as a marketing strategist. I’ve consulted for companies in this industry, so I’ve seen some of this from the inside. And there is an uncomfortable truth: a lot of this industry runs on selling you the idea that your next plugin or sample library is the thing standing between you and your breakthrough. And a lot of the forums where that message spreads are, intentionally or not, built to maximize engagement more than they’re built to help you make music. GAS, conflict, and FOMO keep people scrolling and buying. It’s not a conspiracy theory; it’s just the simple reality of how things work.

I’m not saying gear doesn’t matter, and I’m not trying to shame anyone’s collection. Some purchases genuinely open up new creative territory. But I think a lot of us — myself included at times — chase the dopamine hit of something new more than we chase the actual work of finishing a track with what we’ve already got. GAS gets joked about a lot, but I’m honestly not sure it’s always a joke.

No answers here, just want to open it up:

• Has a piece of gear ever sat unused after you bought it? Did that bother you?
• Where’s your personal line between “this expands what I can make” and “I just wanted the dopamine hit”?
• Do you think forum/community culture in this space makes this better or worse?

This isn’t just a hypothetical for me, and most of you already know the backstory. LinkedMusicians started as a full social platform — the idea was to cover the whole craft, not just gear. Almost two years in, the deals forum was basically the only part that really took off, which was never the point I was hoping to make. That’s part of why I shut it down and moved things over to this subreddit — partly to keep this community connected, and partly to give this project a chance to be about the stuff I originally wanted it to be about.

Not saying that to complain — if anything it kind of proves the point. Even in a space that wasn’t built around gear, gear is still what people gravitated toward the hardest. That’s a real pull, and I’d rather talk about it honestly than just quietly design around it.

What do you think?