Is a stereo system a tougher sale to young people?

Casting Pearls before Swine?

I have 2 sons- when I was my young's age I was already spying such things as Dual or Thorens turntables, AR speakers, and receivers from Pioneer, Marantz, Tandberg. And a Teac deck was not far from thought. Money I saved was earmarked for when I could purchase a system. Finally bought a system in 1977. Now fast forward to 2020- among my sons' friends, and they have many, there is exactly 1 person who has any interest in an audio system. Everyone else- music via earbuds and their cell phone is entirely adequate. And if you think about it, that's something to envy because they clearly care about the music, and the gear is purely a tool to get the music to them. I will also say that most of my kids' friend, however, do appreciate a fine sounding system. But the idea of having friends over to listen to records simply doesn't exist in 2020 among the younger set. 

I think the older generations should try to help the younger generations realize how enjoyable a good 2-channel system is to have in their house. The easiest way to do that: let them listen to your high end systems and if they are interested, teach them how to build something similar but very affordable (much of the young generation has student loan debt on top of increasing cost of living with stagnant wages). I have tech savvy friends that don’t know how stereo sound works. When I play my system for them while they sit in the sweet spot, I have to explain “there is no center channel, that’s just stereo sound doing its thing.” Education is important. A good system doesn’t have to cost a lot and you can upgrade over the course of years to decades. 

Maybe it is that younger generations will always be most interested in leading edge technology, and while many of us were young high-end stereo sound could have been considered leading edge technology for the time, with advent of computers and smartphones and other stuff, it no longer is.

Everyone by definition these days has a smartphone, which includes ability to play music and take photos.  Although I'm not into photography, I suspect loss of interest in hi-end photography may decline coincident with that of loss of interest in hi-end audio.

I think that todays inexpensive sources of music are better sounding than when we were kids.  So there is not a sense of missing out on that much with their gear.