Young 'to be poorer than parents at every stage of life'

Re:Young 'to be poorer than parents at every stage of life' by ashark on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @12:32PM (#10622162)

I've noticed a pattern activities or hobbies that've been around at least a few decades: you ask "which X should I buy?" and the answer is often, "DO NOT buy common 'consumer' stuff—either pay 5 times as much for one that isn't terrible or buy ANY model from the mid-eighties or earlier and refurb it, at a total cost of ~1-2x as much as the new garbage"

Part—not all, but part—of the supposed increase in quality of life due to cheaper goods is because entry level quality has dropped, for certain categories of goods.

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Re:Young 'to be poorer than parents at every stage of life' by jp555 on Tuesday November 24, 2015 @12:55PM (#10622295)

cheaper is sometimes from lower-quality, but don't discount the effect of economies of scale. Every doubling of production volume reduces cost by ~30%. For example, Tesla thinks it's gigafactory will reduce the cost of their battery pack by ~30%, because that one factory will double global battery production. The same thing is happening to solar panels. As production sykrockets, prices plummet.

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