Why are diapers so expensive?

Re:Why are diapers so expensive? by chrissnell on Thursday April 05, 2018 @10:15AM (#16765065)

You're quoting prices for a diaper service--one that comes to your house and picks up the dirty diapers, launders them, and gives you clean, folded diapers in exchange. This is a rich person's service. My parents didn't use a diaper service in the 1970s, they washed them in the washing machine like virtually everyone else. So, in today's money, those $0.01-0.02 cloth diapers would be about $0.10-0.25 in 2018 money each and let's say that soap would be another $3 in 2018 money. 40 cloth diapers and soap is about the same as that 40-pack of Pampers and you get to keep and re-use the cloth diapers. You're breaking even after one load.

Any parent here who has ever used cloth diapers can tell you: they save money. They should be teaching cloth diapering like they teach breastfeeding to mothers of newborns.

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Re:Why are diapers so expensive? by avar on Thursday April 05, 2018 @11:10AM (#16765603)

I mistakenly over-quoted the paragraph and included the sentence about diaper services, but the prices I was discussing were the retail prices quoted before that.

But yes, I'm willing to believe that cloth diapers were cheaper, and still are cheaper. But that's a digression from the main topic at hand, which is the question of whether or not disposable diapers are cheaper than in the 50s when adjusted for inflation.

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Re:Why are diapers so expensive? by chrissnell on Thursday April 05, 2018 @01:01PM (#16766675)

Honestly, I have no idea. My parents were struggling when I was born, but they were also living in the hippy-dippy 1970s when a "natural" choice like cloth diapering was the favored option. Either way, the diapers were cheap and they worked well--I potty-trained very early.

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