> The other day I read a Volkswagen (VW Golf) today is ten times more expensive today then thirty years ago.

After adjusting for inflation? I'm gonna need a citation on that. This number sounds bogus.

> A modern graphic card nowadays costs 500$, whereas in 2011 you got it or 200$.

A high-end graphics card (like a 1070) costs $500. A mid-range "good enough" card (like an RX 480) costs $200. It's a segmented market, and it was exactly the same in 2011. Again, your claims are highly suspect and I want to see some numbers backing them up.

> And CPUs got more expensive again as well.

That's because AMD released a garbage fire architecture in Bulldozer, and Intel, no longer having meaningful competition, did what they always do and jacked up prices. Boo on Intel, but there's nothing macroeconomic about it.

A high-end graphics card is $700+, the 1070 you mentioned is toward the upper end of the "mid tier" market. Cards like the 1060 and RX480 are considered low tier.

This is nowhere close to true. A 1060 is only "low tier" for someone who subscribes to /r/pcmasterrace; for regular PC gamers it's a solid mid-range card.

Also remember that the GeForce 3, when launched, cost $600, which would be $800 today (and this was a consumer card equivalent to the 1080, not a professional card like the Titans).

Ten times more expensive over 30 years? What was inflation over those 30 years? Was it a factor of 10?

Even if not... how were the airbags in a VW 30 years ago? Oh, it didn't have them? You're literally not buying the same thing, even if it serves the same function.

The statement from the mid-to-late 1980s was that the computer you want always costs $2000. That quit being true from about 2000 to about 2010. But if you don't need high-end graphics (by current standards), you can buy a quite nice computer for $700.

The regular Golf wasn't caught for cheating was it? Only the TDI?

I'm not sure the price comparisons you give make sense because $200 today still buys you a better CPU/GPU than $200 did back then..

The Golf is not ten times more expensive today than 30 years ago, not even close, non even in nominal dollar value. Adjusted for inflation, a 1986 Golf would have to have retailed for less than $1000 for the 10x number to hold (the 2016 starts at $20k, which is about $9k in 1986).

Also, FWIW, the Golf of today seems to be more of a upscale car, where the 80's models felt substantially more of a no-nonsense workaday car.

You are a bit off on the increase in auto prices. For instance, A 1978 VW Rabbit (Golf predecessor) cost around $5000. A 2016 Golf starts at $18,500. I haven't had a VW in a long time, but the Rabbit was a pretty bare bones automobile. Almost anything these days is way more luxurious than cars back then and way more reliable.

> while the older models still work like a clock if there is no rust issue it will last another thirty years (if well maintained).

There is every reason to believe that a modern VW will last for 60 years as well in similar situations. I would guess the new one will last longer than the old one: VW has been improving quality over the years.

Of course most cars are wrecked long before that 60 years: humans make bad drivers. People also tend to not want to take care of old cars as well. Cars don't hold value in general so keeping the car on the road for 60 years will more than once call for more maintenance dollars than the car is worth.

> There is every reason to believe that a modern VW will last for 60 years as well in similar situations. I would guess the new one will last longer than the old one

That's funny and must be a joke.

Cars since at least the late nineties are completely designed in 3D CAD (computer aided design). The manufacturer knows exactly what each part weights, how much each part costs, how long each part lasts and they increased the revenue margin tremendously while lowering the car quality to last just as long enough and earn a lot of money additionally with car parts that break exactly two weeks after the 3 or 5 year warrent. Or vital parts that aren't protected to corrosion, and transform a good car in a few years.

Look at the BBC TV show Top Gears (pre 2016). For their christmas special the hosts drove with older cars around the world in sheer unbelievable tortious conditions for the cars. An american or european car build in 2000s/2010s is made to last for x years, and need to replace several parts after every y thousends miles. If you take an old Mercedes, Volvo, etc from the 1970-1990s you can use it for thirty or fourty years even in demanding regions of the world. Such cars run in their later life after being a taxi vehicle in US/Europe for twenty years with the same car engine or a replacement another thirty years in Africa or parts of Asia. You can't do that with newer models, at all (with the exception of a few models like Mercedes G perhaps, but certainly not with Mercedes E or S class - the last "well" built ones are from 1999, the same or often a lot worse with most other US/European car manufactorer - like the 1970s VW cars run fine today, but don't even think about owning a new model for more than ten years - it would get very expensive fast).

I think the issue might be people requiring better and better products. Cost vs. utility is decreasing, but the absolute cost rises.

Graphics cards are a great example. The new gtx1080 is faster, and half(?) the cost, of the previous generation Titan, but costs a lot more than the gtx980 (previous gen card it replaced).

So you could say Nvidia cards are getting more expensive, but not really. Price vs. performance is falling.

The high end graphics cards were $500 in 2011 too. Maybe your definition of high end has changed...

A nVidia GForce GT580 was less than $500 (like $400), and a mid-to-highend GT570 around $250. The same class of cards the GTX 1080 costs now $650-$700 and the GTX 1070 $450.

"GTX 1070 prices start at $429 instead of $379, while GTX 1080 prices start at $649 (and if you actually want a card in stock, that’ll be $699). These are prices that are closer to last generations GTX 980 Ti/980 prices than they are 980/970, and it means that the actual GTX 1000 series price premium is much higher as it stands, at $100+ compared to the last generation. Given that these cards keep selling out, clearly there are enough buyers willing to pay these prices – it’s the free market in action – but it means NVIDIA’s MSRPs are for the moment an imaginary number."

-- http://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1...

Fact is computer components got more expensive, as less people buy a PC. It correlates with the stagnation of single core performance of Intel/AMD (aka no need to replace a years old PC at all) and the less than inviting situation that Microsoft introduced with Windows 8 and continues even more aggressive with Windows 10. The users simply buy an iOS or Android tablet and a Playstation 4 to prevent continues frustration.