Is this a submarine? None of the music aficionados I know talk about cassette tapes. They're all about FLACs and vinyl.
"Also last year, the National Audio Company — the largest cassette tape manufacturer in the U.S. — saw a 20% increase in its commercial tape duplication business (this doesn't include blank tapes or audiobooks), according to a company spokesperson. This continues an upward-sloping trend for the Missouri-based company, which did more business in 2014 than at any other point since its factory opened in 1969."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_Records
'Get Bent in 2011 went on to say, "Burger’s played a crucial role in the revival of the cassette tape, as well as in the promotion of the thriving Orange County garage scene."'
I'm not very prolific, but I have a couple. Both came with a d/l url. I don't own a tape player, but having physical correlates to information products does have something engaging about it. I suspect it is a trend we'll see more and more of, not just a tapes. c.f. Amibo, Steel/Tinbox games/bluray.
I personally suspect the 'it sounds better' thing is post-hoc rationalisation, mostly, given how trivial it would be to record/recreate the tape-butchered sound in a digital format.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/5/9409563/reel-to-reel-tape-...
But there's a general nostalgia thing happening all over, and tape and vinyl seem to be part of that.
When I switched from tape to vinyl in the 70s I noticed I enjoyed some of my collection less, even though I was hearing a lot more detail.
I've often wondered if there's a psychoacoustic effect which forces your brain to work harder to parse sound on cassette.
It's such a lofi medium I suspect your brain fills in the missing detail with what you'd like to hear. So it's more involving than (say) FLACl, which gives you all the detail you want - and then some.