Black beans are another example. There are various brands available here. The expensive ones had more/all beans that were black in colour while the cheaper, particularly store brands, were all dark brown. Presumably there are different grades of beans so the price of the can was a predictor of the colour of the contents. Now when you open a can, regardless of brand, they are almost universally dark brown.

I actually noticed this too the other day with my regular brand. The beans in the package was brown. Never seen that before so I was mildly confused.

> An interesting point raised in the NPR piece is that sometimes your basket stays the same at the same price, but the content is actually inferior in subtle and not so subtle ways.

And sometimes the content is actually superior. A US$ 30K nowadays is generally much better than a similarly priced car from 10 or 20 years ago. The iPhone was released in the United States in 2007 at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model: what kind of tech can you get for the same prices nowadays?

Everyone seems to ignore deflation, especially due to technology. This 1991 Radio Shack add illustrates the point quite well IMHO:

> There are 15 electronic gimzo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket.

> So here’s the list of what I’ve replaced with my iPhone.

> * All weather personal stereo, [*US*]$11.88. I now use my iPhone with an Otter Box.

> * AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone.

> * In-Ear Stereo Phones, $7.88. Came with iPhone.

> * Microthin calculator, $4.88. Swipe up on iPhone.

> * Tandy 1000 TL/3, $1599. I actually owned a Tandy 1000, and I used it for games and word processing. I now do most of both of those things on my phone.

> * VHS Camcorder, $799. iPhone.

> * Mobile Cellular Telephone, $199. Obvs.

> * Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says “You’ll never drive ‘alone’ again!” iPhone.

> * 20-Memory Speed-Dial phone, $29.95.

> * Deluxe Portable CD Player, $159.95. 80 minutes of music, or 80 hours of music? iPhone.

> * 10-Channel Desktop Scanner, $99.55. I still have a scanner, but I have a scanner app, too. iPhone.

> * Easiest-to-Use Phone Answerer, $49.95. iPhone voicemail.

> * Handheld Cassette Tape Recorder, $29.95. I use the Voice Memo app almost daily.

> * BONUS REPLACEMENT: It’s not an item for sale, but at the bottom of the ad, you’re instructed to ‘check your phone book for the Radio Shack Store nearest you.’ Do you even know how to use a phone book?

> You’d have spent $3,054.82 in 1991 to buy all the stuff in this ad that you can now do with your phone.

* https://www.huffpost.com/entry/radio-shack-ad_b_4612973

That US$1600 Tandy 1600 runs a 286 CPU and has a 20MB hard drive, and supported 640×200×16 resolution (720×350 mode for monochrome monitors):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000#Tandy_1000_SL_and_T...

What kind of system can you get for $1600 nowadays?

I always found it funny how most economists claim that deflation would be disastrous because customers would keep delaying purchases while waiting for prices to drop further. And yet everyone keeps buying computers even though we've had almost continuous deflation for decades.

Never connected it with the word "deflation", but I guess I figured out a counterargument as a kid: back then, if you bought a mobile phone contract, you'd find yourself regretting it in less than a month, because the same company now offered a better deal; few months later, a better deal with a better phone. And here you are, locked into a static deal for the next two years.

But well, you have to buy that phone eventually, right? So you take the best deal you can find, and stop worrying about it. That's the only sane way.

So in general - customers will delay purchases until the reasons they want to make the purchase outweigh the expected savings from delaying further.

I've also found the reverse to apply: for example, taking out a mortgage, I opted not to hurry despite fast-rising prices, because I judged the money saved on doing it earlier would not offset the mental cost of adding a house searching and mortgage process on top of two other highly-taxing life events.

Until they don't:

The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current, soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely. The term was coined in reference to the Osborne Computer Corporation, a company that took more than a year to make its next product available, and eventually went bankrupt in 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

That just adds jitter on a month to month basis. Purchases remain nice and steady over time.

That doesn't appear to be a real effect for the electronics industry in general. When Apple announces the iPhone 13 consumers keep buying the iPhone 12. Retailers just cut the price of the older model to close out their stock.

The issue here is that for most people (as opposed to highly paid tech workers) these items are all luxury items that are rarely replaced, as opposed to food and energy which are necessities of life. I know a number of university students who are using 4-6 year old laptops to do their work. The fact that they can get a better laptop for the same money is irrelevant because they are spending that money on things like gas to get to classes and work.

I think the point stands. A 4-6 year old laptop today is significantly more powerful than a 4-6 year old laptop 15 years ago.

Though, the accounting for this ad, we don't see the inflation adjusted price - because $1600 in 1991 isn't the same as $1600 now.

That $1600 Tandy would equate to ~$3250 in Today's day and age.

So, essentially an M1 Pro/Max MacBook Pro.

Even if you use the nominal value of $1600 as opposed to the "real" value, you're getting way more capabilities.

I bought my 2003 VW Golf brand new from the dealer for CA$ 30K all-in, and after inflation that's the equivalent of about CA$ 40K nowadays. I'd get a pretty good car with much better tech and safety even for $30K, and could get something relatively fancy for $40K.

I think they try to account for this in a hedonic index - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_index

Pretty sure that only accounts for easy-to-measure headline specifications - for example, it takes into account that people are buying 55" TVs when a few years ago they might've bought 32" TVs, but ignores the fact that you need to buy a 55" TV to get similar sound and picture quality to a 32" TV from a few years ago due to quality reductions in smaller sets. Also, I strongly suspect any methodology using measurements of how much extra people were willing to pay when both were available overestimates the value of the improvements to all the other people who switched to the "better" product when the cheaper one was discontinued, since most of them didn't consider paying the extra to be worth it. For example, if someone needs a flash drive to transfer small documents around buys a 32GB one when they would've bought a 8GB one a few years ago because that's now the option that's cheap to manufacture and readily available, they don't get the same benefit that someone who paid extra for the 32GB model over the 8GB a few years ago did.

Your facts are wrong. At the same price point, the 32" TVs available today have better picture and sound quality than those from a few years ago. Check the archived manufacturer specifications and independent reviews.

They also have ads and harvest viewing data because of "smart" features. I'm convinced that failing to treat collected user data and wasted time as a real cost distorts economic analysis of the modern tech sector.

For example, you could argue that no one is harmed by Google's near-monopoly on search because consumer prices aren't going up (it's still free!). But if you consider data collected and time wasted scrolling past ads Google's services have been getting steadily more expensive for years.

Of course measuring these costs in an consistent, objective way is extremely difficult :(