Would vinyl even be invented today?

That was a weird explanation of old Rube...but I like it. I also think the turntable thing is "weird science"...recently read about a French dude in the 1840s or so who "recorded" a voice on paper using some sort of dust and a megaphone device that was for a "visual" representation of sound for deaf people (!). There was no audio playback for this thing, but a restoration lab recently was able to "play" the dust pattern and actually heard the guy singing. Man...this was in an article from the New Yorker (I think) about using laser/digital tech to see what old, unplayable wax cylinders contain because you can't use a needle on them as they will be destroyed, or they're already cracked to shit...all cool stuff. Love LPs...my old faves are so damn interesting and engaging. How often do you stick an LP on to hear a little bit and wind up listening to the whole damn thing?

"Man...this was in an article from the New Yorker (I think) about using laser/digital tech to see what old, unplayable wax cylinders contain because you can't use a needle on them as they will be destroyed, or they're already cracked to shit...all cool stuff."

I don't know if they still make them anymore, but one company was making TT's that used a laser to read the record instead of a phono cart.

Saw a Youtube video with the leading minds of audio on the cutting edge of digital audio exploring the limits of digital audio. Boy were they all into USB, Spdif, jitter, storage and the likes.
Turns out the most advanced of the group were long confirmed analog enthusiasts hell bent on getting that sound into digital formats. They have made considerable progress. No one on the panel claimed to have achieved it
On an interesting note, it seems there is approximately a terabyte of info on an LP. That may go some way in explaining why the analog format is a more complete experience.
The answer to the original question is probably no, unless someone really decided to think outside the box. It's just too simple.

Digital would have worked for audio as well as it does for video only if there were as many consumers who appreciate audio as compared to those who appreciate video. Look at the number of big flatscreen TVs and projectors that are sold. How many of them would spend on good audio ? Hence the growth rate of audio quality in digital domain.

yea dood, we tryin' we're all obsessed with placing a needle, flipping a record that sometimes has only one song on each side or same song with different mixes, scratching it, then replacing this needle, upgrading, cleaning, shelving, storing... wtf? why?