One thing I love about modern Minecraft is that Mojang suddenly remembered that the Jukebox exists!

July 30, 2010 is when the Jukebox and the first two discs, Cat and 13 are added. This was in alpha!!

September 29, 2011 The rest of the OG discs are added, except for 'Wait' this was in beta 1.9 or if you don't count snapshots, release 1.0

November 1, 2012 A bug is fixed allowing "Wait" to be added in release 1.4.3

June 23, 2020, over 7 years later, Pigstep is added! With 9 additional discs since and I love how they're all obtained in different ways! I feel like these sort of distractionarry side goals are whats going to make worlds last longer. Collectibles that ask you to travel the game world and interact with a very wide range of differing mechanics will always be my jam!

Not to mention, although its a small connection to older, existing content: it IS a connection! Helping newer updates feel connected to older ones in at least this one small way!

What are your favorite OG and modern discs? Mine are definitely Stal for OG discs and Tears for modern. Stal has this sort of jazzy noir feel, very sophisticated. Then Tears just feels mysterious and powerful!

Initial Hypnosis

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This is going to perhaps be a hot take but I think Elytra is just a bit over rated, and a strong infrastructure is better. Now in general I value builds as a stronger indication of player/server progression than raw items or gear. So why do I think traditional infrastructure is stronger than an Elytra?

Firstly speed. One of the most important factors of transportation is speed. Boats on ice, 72+ blocks per second, constant speed. Elytra, bursts of 35.5 BPS. Rail ways in the neather equate to between roughly 40-60 overworld BPS and good luck safely flying through open nether.

Secondly saftey. If you build a road or a bridge or rail way you've likely built it to be safe. There is little to no chance of falling off, being attacked or crashing into something.

Thirdly the usefulness of infrastructure is potentially multiplied by every player on the server. Everyone can use a bridge or road or rail way. Only 1 player can benefit from an Elytra.

This leads into one of the most SIGNIFICANT advantages infrastructure has over Elytra... lets say me and an Elytra user both come to a wide gap, I build a bridge and they just fly across. Now lets assume we die on the other side... One I'm far less likely to die because I get to use a chest plate and they don't but secondly if I do die my bridge will help me get back to my stuff. Their Elytra will not.

My bridges, roads and rails have no upkeep cost. The Elytra requires a constant supply of rockets.

(edit, gonna bold this next part, lots of people didn't see it)

All this to say the one area where in Elytra has utility over infrastructure is in exploring new locations... but even this is a trade off as you are significantly less armored without a chest. Most of the time, however, I feel like you will be traveling between fixed locations. Between player bases, to and from portals and farms, locations that are set to one specific point where it would be much more useful to build roads between them.

Elytra is just hyped up because its the path of least resistance and requires the least amount of thought, even though my every metric infrastructure is better. Its faster, safer, can be used by more people, with a lower maintenance cost.

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Feedback received

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The most common feedback is that other people put a lot more consideration on the initial cost of infrastructure than I did. I assumed the cost a non-issue since once built it has infinite uses. That line of thinking, however, does admittedly assume an indefinitely active server. In a short lived server a road may not be used enough times to out-value an Elytra, but given enough time it eventually will.

Some things I had not considered!

1. The space in the game world that infrastructure occupies could also be considered part of the cost! And this is true! Space that is a road cannot be a home, or a farm, or an arena or whatever else. Space IS a resource in of itself!
2. A player with an Elytra can gather Elytra for other players. They *can* and I hope any time you play on a server they do.... but I feel a player is just as likely to hoard as many as they can to trade and sell back to others at high mark ups. So thats a toss up for me.
3. When calculating that you are less likely to die with a chest plate than an Elytra, I did not consider that Elytra helps you avoid danger entirely as you can simply fly away if things get too dicey.

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some final thoughts

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Elytra is closer to infrastructure than I originally considered but in any long term world, it does not replace fixed infrastructure. I never intended to say Elytra was bad or weak, merely that it does not out mode fixed infrastructure like people would tout it does, unless the world is intended to be discarded after a week.