alt Hacker NewsI think this is an odd article. It mixes together a variety of technologies that have little in common (gas discharge tubes, CRTs). It doesn't really say anything about the operation of vacuum tubes, their advantages, or disadvantages. And doesn't even really support its own thesis. The reign of vacuum tubes lasted for less than the reign of the transistor and is in no way unusual in the world of electronics.
There are quite a few interesting stories to tell here. Probably the most interesting one is that transistors still underperform vacuum tubes in many respects that would matter to purists, but that don't matter in real life because we learned to compensate for it. Well, except for niche audiophile audiences who don't believe in negative feedback or digital signal processing and want a very linear amplifying component... that they then connect to op-amps, DACs, and ADCs on both sides because that's the only practical way to do it, but there's a performative tube somewhere in between.
Another cool story: there were some "integrated circuit" vacuum tubes!
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a non-trivial portion of the guitar-amp world is still very much set on tubes, even as amp simulators get closer to "the real thing".
a cool recent development i've been following is the Octal by Verellen Devices (created by an awesome musician who also built some highly coveted boutique all-tube amps): https://www.verellendevices.com - it's basically designed to replicate the push/pull of power tubes in a solid-state package to push extremely loud guitar cab speakers. they seem to impart their own sound signature but still sound really really good, especially compared to a lot of solid-state guitar amps.
There's really not benefits to vacuum tubes pretty much anywhere. The only place I can think of where they are superior (which may not be true anymore) is high power transmission in, for example, radio and radar towers.
In all other applications transistors will be superior. Especially because any problem from a transistor can be fixed by adding more transistors until the problem is gone or imperceptible.
The audiophile purists are using pseudo-intelectualism to justify a superiority complex. They frequently fail double blind tests whenever push comes to shove. The most famous example of this was them being incapable of telling the difference between a coat-hanger and a premium cable.