This isn't limited to music. When I worked in NYC and didn't have time to rock climb much, I bought a ton of rock climbing gear--much of it niche equipment that I've never used.
Eventually I realized that this was just a stand-in for actually climbing: I believed that my job was enabling me to rock climb by funding my trips and buying my gear, but the reality was that I was stagnating as a rock climber, because most of my climbing time was at the gym, and that was low-quality time because my job was sapping all my time and energy. On the rare times I could take a few days off, I wasn't in the shape I wanted to be and spent a lot of the trip figuring out how to climb on real rock again since I mostly climbed on plastic. Buying gear was a way to feel like I was making some progress as a climber, because I had the gear to do more things, but the reality was that I wasn't.
I wish I could say I took some agency and started my freelance business, but the reality is that I sort of stumbled into freelance work, and my business started itself. But I did move to a rock climbing area, and eventually moved into a van, and I'm lucky to be able to climb outdoors >3 days a week now (not full days most of the time, but still). In a way, the GAS period of my life set me up for this well, because now I pretty much never need to make any big purchases--I occasionally have to replace an item that wears out but for the most part I have everything I need.
I did also buy a lot of guitar-related gear when I was buying rock climbing gear. That I've mostly sold: all I have at this point is my acoustic guitar, a capo, and a few picks. Again this coincided with me actually playing a lot more guitar, and realizing that I'm really only doing it for myself and only want to do finger-picky acoustic stuff anyway.