Spaced repetition systems have gotten better

This is at least half true, but among SRS folks it's overstated.

The same argument stands for any creative endeavor.

Debussy had a greater experience than I did with Claire de Lune, because he composed it. In turn, my experience of it is probably greater than the next persons' because I learned it. Bottom of the heap is the lowly listener - but I think everyone would agree that listening is a wonderful way to appreciate music and shouldn't be diminished.

Same for literature, visual arts, etc etc.

The still greater reason that create-your-own has historically dominated for SRS decks is the specific curation aspect. Anything curated by someone else suffers from mismatch with your own intentions and prior knowledge profile.

(Plug time. Like most people, I am building my own grandiose SRS app. Some writing on it is here: http://patched.network )

I made the mistake of just jumping in and I would say I spent the first 6 months using Anki “wrong” in the sense I would make bad cards, try to make mc questions, not enabling or optimizing FSRS, capping reviews, doing Anki before I knew the material, etc.

I’m someone who loves to learn from scratch/figure it out myself. I would never recommend watching a YouTube tutorial or following a guide for something you can figure out yourself, but I have to make an exception for Anki. Anki is one of those rare things where it’s simply just better to just copy what someone else is doing and figure out adjustments for your own workflow over time.

Algorithms and data structures.

Basics of HTML/CSS/JS. I'm not a frontend developer, but this was enough for me to (mostly) understand colleagues' JS code. And often I would inform him of one of the newer JS features he didn't know of (e.g. null coalescing operator). Does it make me a JS developer? No. But it ensures I'm not useless at it.

Python 3.x new features. Simple things like "Stop using os.walk and use scandir instead".

A whole lot of Emacs keybindings. I was a heavy Emacs user before SR, but this really helped take it to the next level (I now mostly rely on hydras, so I no longer memorize keystrokes, cut I can't deny its effectiveness).

Some amount of elisp.

Probably a whole lot more random miscellany I can't recall right now.

Basically, what it does is let you retain information without usage. Prior to this, I would mostly retain only things I use (or had used) often.

I was in university for over a decade. Took lots of notes. But they're useless if you don't review them. Some years after leaving university I stopped trying to learn anything technical unless I was putting it to immediate use. Why bother if you're going to forget?

SR is what let me get back to studying for fun.

Not really. They're just stimulants. Anyway, I'm very skeptical of this use.

I'd guess uni students are buying methamphetamines them because they have gotten themselves into a situation that they cannot handle - too many non-academic scheduled activities, not enough time management skills, possibly a heavy courseload combined with several weeks of avoidance of things they found difficult, poor sleep habits, etc. They need to stay awake and work. I don't think that's all you're talking about, though.

I wouldn't discount the idea that some have an undiagnosed attention deficit problem.

It sounds like you must have had some interesting difficulties with that, not having been a domain expert in music. What were they and how did you overcome them?