There's a myriad of reasons to retain a healthy variety of outdated cables, but the most important for me has been ones to make digital archives. You probably have some hardware laying around in your attic somewhere and, someday, you may wish you had archives of your content. If you don't, you probably know someone who does.

Old tech like this is something that would be nice for your local library to keep stock of. I've been to libraries in the past that had a section carved out as a "library of things," where you could rent odds and ends like sewing machines, non-consumable art supplies, and even assorted computer equipment. If your local library doesn't have something like this, maybe you could propose that they start one and perhaps donate some equipment to help them get started!

Goddamnit I have to get rid of my box of cables

I thought this was supposed to be satire not a true story.

The real box of cables is the one you inherited from your father that he got from his father.

Hey, I just bought a cool old piece of tech, and it needs a cable with that old fat USB connection they used to have. I dug in my box of old cable and found several, of different lengths.

I also keep a box of old AC adaptors, and when I get some old electro-box thingy, I can almost always find an adapter for it.

Everybody makes fun of the tech hoarder, until he saves the day. Then they go back to making fun of him again.

I still have my Laplink cable.