Comment by simondotau

1 day ago

Which is fair, if FileMaker existed in a vacuum. The inflation-adjusted cost of software and hardware has consistently trended downwards over the past 40 years.

5 comments

simondotau

pjmlp 1 day ago

As someone that pays for commercial software, only if you are talking about race to the bottom on mobile stores.

A proper PC or Apple device, proper being the keyword, not throwaway gear under 500 €, is as expensive as always, when buying hardware with 5 to 10 years expected lifetime in a professional setting.

simondotau 18 hours ago
In terms of software, commercial quality software is now often free and/or open source. Maybe the best application software is still expensive, but free software is better than anything that existed a two decades ago let alone four decades. The only people deploying Windows Server these days are doing so for legacy reasons, not by choice.
In terms of hardware, a Macintosh Plus vs a MacBook Neo. The latter is many orders of magnitude superior in any metric you could possibly imagine, and it's 1/10th the price in real dollars. Even if you insist on a "serious" laptop it's still 1/4th the price.
Year Example Price Real 2026 ---- ----------------------- -------- ---------- 1986 Compaq Portable II (286) $3,500 $10,700 1996 Dell/Gateway Pentium 166 $2,500 $5,300 2006 Dell XPS (Core 2 Duo) $2,200 $3,650 2016 Dell XPS 15 $1,500 $2,100 2026 Dell XPS 14/16 $2,000 $2,000 Year Example Price Real 2026 ---- ----------------------- -------- ---------- 1986 Macintosh Plus $2,599 $7,900 1996 Power Macintosh 7200 $2,000 $4,300 2006 20" iMac $1,699 $2,800 2016 13" MacBook Pro $1,699 $2,360 2026 14" MacBook Pro (M5) $1,999 $2,000 Year Example Price Real 2026 ---- ----------------------- -------- ---------- 1986 Novell NetWare $3,000 $9,100 1996 Windows NT Server 4.0 $1,100 $2,400 2006 Windows Server 2003 $1,000 $1,660 2016 Windows Server 2016 $900 $1,250 2026 Linux $0 $0 Year Example Price Real 2026 ---- ----------------------- -------- ---------- 1986 Early pro NLE systems $50,000 $152,000 1996 Adobe Premiere 4.2 $800 $1,700 2006 Final Cut Pro $1,000 $1,660 2016 Final Cut Pro X $300 $420 2026 Da Vinci Resolve $0 $0
And all of these tables are actually unfair because the newer stuff is way, way, way, way better than any of the older stuff. If we were being fair, the old computers should be absolute top-of-the-line models and the 2016/2026 models should be a Raspberry Pi.
- pjmlp 17 hours ago
  
  A Macintosh Plus was only affordable under university student discounts in Portugal, and hardly seen anywhere.
  MacBook Neo is a nothing to talk about with its 8 GB and phone motherboard, I specifically mentioned "A proper PC or Apple device, proper being the keyword, not throwaway gear under 500 €, is as expensive as always, when buying hardware with 5 to 10 years expected lifetime in a professional setting."
  Neo isn't such device, my current hardware has 32 GB.
  Your examples miss the relation of salaries, life cost and related percentage to hardware prices, per country.
  
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