While I’m having my morning coffee over here, I’m agreeing with all of this as well.
That Ira Glass video has been with me for years. It’s a brilliant piece of knowledge.
My space is a desk, 40x120cm. And to be fair, it’s smaller than that since I’m very picky about appearances. It needs to look good on the desk as well. I’ve actually turned down gear just because I don’t like the way it looks. For me, it’s a complete experience - the touch of the material, the smoothness of the enconders, the display’s quality. Part of the reason why I love my Tempest, is because it looks so damn good on my desk.
While I agree 100% about GAS getting in the way of making music, I just wanted to point out that creating great music might not always be the ultimate goal for all of us.
I think of myself more as a geeky tech person than a musician. I’m into this hobby because I enjoy exploring sound and gear, think of new ways to optimize my setup, learn new stuff and just mess around and see what happens if I do X to Y and loop it through Z kind of thing. Music sometimes feels like a by-product of that hobby and sort of just happens along the way. To a certain degree, anyway. I’m probably exaggerating.
My point is just that noodling around with cool toys can be the goal itself, and if it is, the “right” gear might not be what makes sense musically.