Re:The Ultimate Guide to Inflation
by jbay808 on Monday May 10, 2021 @02:24PM
(#27109172)
This is a great example, because if Apple had launched the iPhone SE in 2015 at $10,000 alongside their $199 6S, it would have bounced like a bad joke, and probably only a few wealthy people would have bought them.
So in one sense, yes, tech has gotten cheaper, but in another sense there's a limit to how much deflation can really be stated because you can't say someone buying a new iPhone in 2020 is saving $9000 relative to what they would have spent five years prior. They wouldn't have spent it.
There's also a recent inflationary trend in tech, in that old computers actually slow down due to the growing CPU/memory demands of software and web apps to deliver more or less equivalent value to what they used to.
So in one sense, yes, tech has gotten cheaper, but in another sense there's a limit to how much deflation can really be stated because you can't say someone buying a new iPhone in 2020 is saving $9000 relative to what they would have spent five years prior. They wouldn't have spent it.
There's also a recent inflationary trend in tech, in that old computers actually slow down due to the growing CPU/memory demands of software and web apps to deliver more or less equivalent value to what they used to.