Comment by eudamoniac
6 days ago
> Since the McDonald's burger is now cheaper (after adjusting for inflation) then is it also worse than it was in 1970?
Probably? I'm not going to assert it but I would be unsurprised.
> Because if it's the same or better than it sure sounds an example of why people may have acquired "some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be".
Again, what is your point? I'm sure there exists more than a few examples of things getting cheaper and better, maybe even most things? That doesn't mean it is a universal phenomenon that should be expected and cause anger when it doesn't happen.
Your multi-paragraphs about the dress... also doesn't refute the point that things were more expensive back then. There are many Temu dresses for <$10 which was $1.50 in 1970. The 1970 Sears catalog has most dresses around $10. Okay, great, the dress you prefer to compare is "only" 6.7x more expensive. You got me! Great work choosing cheaper examples than I did, for sheer pedantry! Muting you now as I don't find your post history otherwise valuable.
My point is that things weren't as dire in 1970 as you wrote. You can make your same argument without doubling their prices.
I think people are correct to be angry that RAM over the last year has gotten more expensive for the same quality.
I stopped buying jeans 20+ years ago when they started falling apart too quickly, even when I bought them from a Levis store. It may be possible to buy $212 jeans that have the equivalent durability of spending $25 on jeans back in 1970s, but wading through the dreck of expensive crappy jeans sold for brand recognition or where price is used as a false indicator of quality and durability is not worth my time.
That feeling of wasting my time is not captured by simply comparing prices.