Yeah it's sorta of fascinating. Likewise now cells phones are faster than supercomputers from two decades ago and everyone can afford one. Meanwhile hardwood furniture is much more expensive now that it's usually in the "rich peoples" category.
From what I've read, the little plastic baubles part of buttons are cheap, it's the electrical wiring harnesses and assembly that are expensive part of physical controls.
Re:Car touchscreens are cheap, not good
by bryanlarsen on Tuesday July 07, 2026 @11:43AM
(#48819379)
Injection molding is still quite cheap. I think it's the tooling and labor and wiring and parts management et cetera that makes the cost add up for fiddly little bits.
It amuses me that back in the 90's LCD color screens were magical fairy dust that cost about the same as what magical fairy dust would cost. Laptops with color LCD screens were like $6000 in the 90's, I think $3k over a greyscale. That's like $13k today.
Whereas the little plastic buttons and knobs were cheaper to pump out of an injection molding machine and assembled. Now screens are cheaper to make than little plastic baubles.