Economists like deLong are obsessed with the idea of ever increasing growth to justify the assault on the lifestyle of working class people. A 1957 US middle class family with a sole bread winner (union job) makes for a very uncomfortable comparison with 2017. Thus the need to focus attention on products and technologies that weren't very advanced 60 years ago.

Frankly though modern houses, automobiles, indoor plumbing, central heat, washing machines, vaccines, 50's era medicine, were a vastly larger jump in living standards than smart phones.

In a free market, there doesn't need to be a "justification" for the price of anything. The price is what someone is willing to pay.

Then that justification for the price is the justification for being willing to pay that price; same thing.

Also, "free market" is kind of a joke as a mantra. For example, "without interference" kind of would require a whole lot of marketing people stopping what they're doing. As it is now, many companies themselves are doing their best to interfere with the decisions of consumers and workers, in some cases even get in bed with each other and wage outright war on those they extract money from; so that's not a free market by a long shot.

I use the phrase 'Potemkin Markets' to describe a lot of this stuff.

In a way I love that this comment is greyed out. It's the only one that has merit. Think of it: how often do you see articles of this kind on HN, that could be written in the thousands easily, all of which you could call "amusing" or "interesting" with just as much merit? For me personally the answer is "not that I can remember", so yeah, it's kind of obvious.

HN, do you want to be a meeting point for minds, or a marketing tentacle connection node?