Before computers/internet that same categorization was always there. You just didn't know it existed, or couldn't do much about it.
If your shop didn't carry a specific recording version (because it wasn't in their categories), you wouldn't know about it, or would have to spend significant time (and resources) to track it down.
Before you could record music, people categorised everything else. The earliest library classification system we know of comes from Library of Alexandria, 300 years before Common Era.
At every step of the way you were at the whims of the people categorising these things.
Now, as we carry supercomputers in our pockets, people search for and expect computers to immediately retrieve more information than ever before.
So if a person wants a 7", 45 RPM, Single Sided, Card Backed, Audio Postcard recording of Janis Joplin published by Pracownia Pocztówek Dźwiękowych R. Serafin [1], that person now reasonably expects to be able to find this recording.
How do you expect this to work without "categorisation that the bad tech is imposing on us"?
Before computers/internet that same categorization was always there. You just didn't know it existed, or couldn't do much about it.
If your shop didn't carry a specific recording version (because it wasn't in their categories), you wouldn't know about it, or would have to spend significant time (and resources) to track it down.
Before you could record music, people categorised everything else. The earliest library classification system we know of comes from Library of Alexandria, 300 years before Common Era.
At every step of the way you were at the whims of the people categorising these things.
Now, as we carry supercomputers in our pockets, people search for and expect computers to immediately retrieve more information than ever before.
So if a person wants a 7", 45 RPM, Single Sided, Card Backed, Audio Postcard recording of Janis Joplin published by Pracownia Pocztówek Dźwiękowych R. Serafin [1], that person now reasonably expects to be able to find this recording.
How do you expect this to work without "categorisation that the bad tech is imposing on us"?
[1] https://www.discogs.com/release/19013644-Janis-Joplin-Aretha...