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Much of that has to do with cost. By the early 2000s, floppy disks were much cheaper than they were in the 80s and 90s, and I'm guessing that was because manufa
by dlevine 9y ago
Much of that has to do with cost. By the early 2000s, floppy disks were much cheaper than they were in the 80s and 90s, and I'm guessing that was because manufacturers were optimizing for cost.
Those AOL disks that you could get for free and then reformat were clearly pretty cheap, and had a high failure rate.
The same thing is true with TVs made today - TVs are generally lower quality than ones made 20 years ago (in terms of reliability and durability), but are a lot cheaper.
If you target the higher end of the quality/cost curve, you will see an improvement in quality at the same cost (or even at a lower cost)
- klodolph 9y ago> If you target the higher end of the quality/cost curve, you will see an improvement in quality at the same cost (or even at a lower cost) Neither floppy disks nor instant film exist at the higher end of the quality/cost curve, that's the problem. There's also the issue of Baumol's cost disease. For labor intensive work, the cost will increase due to the increased productivity of completely different workers.