My daily driver is from 2014.

Each time I spec up a new PC in line with what I want for data workloads, some spatial, and probably the odd bit of video work, I'm reminded just how expensive hardware has become.

Depends on how you look at it. A modern Core i3 smashing a 5 year old Core i7? What a deal! Pointing to the highest cost version of a market while ignoring the actual speed provided has always been a bad metric for “expensive.”

Plus, this isn’t historically true. An Apple II cost nearly $6000 after inflation. Heck, the Atari cost nearly $1000 in today’s money. The first Macintosh cost $6500 after inflation. Commodore 64? $1670. Heck, $250 from 2014 had the buying power of $310 now. Building a $1000 computer in 2014 would cost $240 more now, and yet our parts are superbly faster.

And you can always pick up a 5-year-old PC with hardware no slower now than it was then for a few hundred bucks. It’s only expensive if you must have latest and greatest for some reason; or look at prices without considering inflation or the magnitude of the performance improvements.