Growing up, portable cassette players were always called “freestyles” here. I never knew it was a marketing thing, or that some other countries also objected to the naming.
this is “original research”, which means i dicked around on the internet archive for half an hour. it may be wrong.
I have to admit a freestyler sounds better than a stowaway and a sound-about for sure. Might even beat Walkman if I never heard of either words and could make a decision unbiased. Do you also know anything about Australia’s reason?
i have no idea :/ a while back i read an interview with the guy at sony sweden who made the decision, but for australia there is literally no info. i sincerely doubt it was a coordinated effort, since it went on sale in like 1979.
Maybe they saw a vhs of Swedish freestylers and said we want that too.