Maybe it started with music playlists. My digital music collection is largely in the same folder structure as it was 15 years ago, but every music player wants to make a library based on metatags, which in theory makes sense, but then just adds the problem of giving everything suitable metatags. Building your own file structure based on your own needs just seems easier and simpler.
There's nothing wrong with tags for music libraries - just that ID3 and the tooling around it sucks - especially genre handling, the artist/performer distinction and the inability to handle my own arbitrary grouping that doesn't correspond to any release information.
I love apps that allow me to easily switch between using tags and using my own folders.
The rather excellent Foobar2000 for Windows has a library view that lets you switch between folder structure and tagged properties (album, artist, genre etc)
