I wonder what happens to tube amp prices when we give up playing or die off?
When I bought my first tube amp in 92 or 93, It was Trace Elliot and Hartke or nothing for most of the local bass players.
Peavey combo's for beginners. Not much tube amp love for bass players back then. The local shop had the only good tube tech in the southeastern regions in the country it was rumored, he was a pot smoking original with a magic touch it was believed. Only he had the contacts who knew the russians, whom again could ship these 'illegal' tubes to the shop. The truth though, was that you delivered the amp for repair, got it back a year later stuffed full of high wattage resistors, and it blew up in smoke at the gig next week (that's what happened to my MM HD-130).
Today we have internet, much better quality tubes (both china and russia actually makes decent tubes) and kids in general know much more about tube amps than when I was a kid. There are many good sounding tube amps on the market (although many are built poorly) and the secondhand market is good. Electronics is available cheaper than ever (components). Measuring equipment is very good now, and cheap enough for kids to buy.
I have a tube amp workshop. In the mid 2000's it was not possible to even hope for making a business out of repairing old amps, today I need more space. I planned a vacation this summer, looks like it's been delayed to October....
Maybe things are different in other parts of the world, but as for scandinavia, kids buy instruments, play rock music, and buy tube amps like never before.
Remember, in the late 60's in the US Fender was pushing out solid state and gibson stopped making amps because they were outdated (and other factors). Many believed this was the end of tubes, but it wasn't.
Later, Jim Marshall was about to stop making tube amps because tube manufacturers closed down and few people back then dealed with russia, china and eastern europe. But even then, there was people with firm belief that tubes would survive, they started working with manufacturers in the far east and eastern europe and managed to talk Jim into continuing making amps.
Quality never goes out of style, but tastes and trend challenges it sometimes.
I'm much more worried about beer, actually. Today it's impossible to buy good belgian or british beer because of all that crap with chocolate and chilli and whatnot, brewed in a bachelor pad bathtub
EDIT: ...And to comment the generation gap, I must admit I meet more grown ups that does not know what a tube is than kids. That puzzels me sometimes.. You know, I say, radiolamps.. like those lit up bulbs you had inside radio's and tv's? Most people respond they never had a habit of poking inside electronics. I guess radio's and tv's 'needed' to be transistorized, while instrument amps (and lots of medical and industrial equipment) resist by nature.