I agree with you. I was a huge fan of Minidisc, and even had an MD-related business in the early 2000s. However, as others have said, it was really only (relatively) unsuccessful in the US. It was hugely successful in Japan, and only faded out as the iPod made it obsolete for music listening, and (slightly later) flash recorders took over the market for field recording.
In Japan, you can still buy blank minidiscs in any normal electronics store.
I had an MD player when the first iPod came out. A friend got one and I noticed how bad it sounded. So we compared the same track at the same bitrate with the same headphones. The quality on the iPod was much worse. But it did look cool and they had iTunes.
In Japan, you can still buy blank minidiscs in any normal electronics store.