I think the issue of youtube nerds vs crate diggers is a false divide really. People who were the latter have now become the former as record shops have dried up and the net has taken over.
I’m still in awe of people who travel for tunes though. It is a different kind of knowledge but the real heads who knew all about the culture were never the collectors really. If you want stories you want to talk to the dancers and people who shifted speaker boxes or whatever.
one difference from the early dissensus years: with youtube and streaming services, you don't need to collect the physical objects to be a deep record nerd. "record collectors" have their one world of crate digging, going to record fairs, dealing records, etc. now, we can be outside that entire world and compete on the same level of knowledge while in the comfort of home.
There are guys like that also on discogs. People compiling a gazillion lists of genres and whatnot. It's unlikely those guys actually own that amount of physical recordings.
When Hackney Museum did that exhibition on black music in the borough I was invited along to one of the meetings they had to set it up.
That's a very boring answer Leo and the boring answer is always the wrong one!
slow and steady wins the race.