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Some work tools get treated like capital or heirloom and some get treated like consumables. Scissors or a hand plane are decent "heirloom" items. Potentially y

Some work tools get treated like capital or heirloom and some get treated like consumables. Scissors or a hand plane are decent "heirloom" items. Potentially you can retire with the same one you started with, or pass them down. Electric drills start to lean toward consumable. Battery tech changes over the years and they do wear out in non-fixable ways. Screen and computer tech advances so fast that 5 years is a "good" lifespan, and 10 years is exceptional. So a 4k investment in scissors is a lifetime investment, while a 5k screen may be more like "1k / year for good monitor as a service" (plus 2k off your next refresh). I think it can still make sense, but very often when people buy the premium in computers or displays they are getting the same thing everyone else gets 30-50% cheaper 1 year later.

urthor 5y ago
Excellent point.
minimaul 5y ago
This is a good comment in general, but: > I think it can still make sense, but very often when people buy the premium in computers or displays they are getting the same thing everyone else gets 30-50% cheaper 1 year later. I'd normally agree, but the article's point is that this isn't happening with displays - we're stuck at 4K as the best available except for a handful of displays that are still expensive even years after introduction. I bought my LG Ultrafine 5K in 2018, and it launched in 2016. There's still no real alternative - we seem to be in a monitor progress limbo.
- gumby 5y ago
  I got one of the 4K ones last year and it was the same price as when introduced. The only price reduction was due to inflation. I assume the desktop monitor business is so low margin that it’s barely worth investing in these days.
- gfxgirl 5y ago
  There's a market of at least 1 (me) waiting for an HD-DPI wide display. All of the 34 - 38 inch displays are LD-DPI :( My LG 38" is 3840x1600. I want it to be 7680x3200 in the same size monitor
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Dell offers a 32” 8K monitor. Driving that beast needs two DPs on your graphics card, however.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Resolution is only a single spec. Other things like viewing angles, response time, refresh rate,brightness, HDR, etc. have been getting better and better for less. A premium 1080p monitor from 15 years ago will not be nearly as good as a modern reasoanbly priced one.
ivalm 5y ago
I am guessing scissors, esp if they get sharpened 2x/day will not last multiple decades (because sharpening an edge removes material).
- Eric_WVGG 5y ago
  He’s almost certainly referring to honing the blades. Actual sharpening would require equipment that would be just ridiculous to have around a hair salon.
  - cycrutchfield 5y ago
    A stone? A strop with polishing compounds?
- ProZsolt 5y ago
  Not necessarily. You can sharpen a knife(and I assume a scissor) with a sharpening steel. Which won't remove any material just straighten the edge.
  - greedo 5y ago
    Eventually that folds over after becoming brittle.
  - xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
    Honing is different than sharpening. Sharpening removes material, like a pencil. Honing merely aligns material. A honing steel doesn't remove material, a sharpening steel does.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- cehrlich 5y ago
  High quality scissors, even with constant use, can easily last that long or even longer. Source: I used to work as a tailor. In fact many people in that industry prefer to use older German-made scissors as they are in many ways better than the stuff you can buy now.
the_pwner224 5y ago
8 years ago you had to pay $1k for a 1440p 27" sRGB IPS panel. 2 years ago I spent $800 on a 4k 27" 144 Hz monitor with >95% P3 coverage. Or another example: 8 years ago I spent $320 on a 1080p 27" (massive pixels) monitor with horrible color reproduction and contrast. 4 years ago I upgraded to a new monitor and for $300 I was able to get 4k 27" with >100% sRGB. And when you consider inflation, progress is even greater. It's the same with GPUs, and to a lesser extent CPUs and memory and storage. Moores law is great in many ways, but as a buyer of high end technology it always stings to see the same thing be 30-50% cheaper a few years later. Progress does seem to have slowed down within the past few years for monitors. I expect the pandemic is relevant there.
- depereo 5y ago
  GPU is a bad example. Models purchased in 2016 cost slightly more than that now, secondhand, after 5 years of usage.
  - the_pwner224 5y ago
    If you take into account pandemic shortages / price inflation, of course. But a current $500 (MSRP) GPU thoroughly spanks a 5 year old $500 GPU. Even my 2 year old Radeon 5700xt is feeling out of date.
    - wtallis 5y ago
      A current-generation $500 MSRP GPU is actually selling for no less than $900, and it's not due to inflation or the pandemic—it's due to cryptocurrency.
      - setr 5y ago
        I thought crypto’s impact on GPUs largely ended, as they moved into far greater cost/efficiency ratios provided by ASICs? Is it for the non-bitcoin cryptos?
        5y ago
14 5y ago
How do the batteries wear out in non fixable ways? I always thought you could put in new cells and be back in business.
vvoaterr 5y ago
Regarding ridiculously-expensive Apple heirloom tools: Go to eBay right now, and buy any Activation-Locked Apple device. It's OK, I'll wait. === ==== OK, now: try to use it to do something. Anything. Something as simple as write a NOTEPAD note, or play one song from iTunes. === ==== Nope! You are surely getting screenfulls of information telling you, this Apple device has been locked and only the original owner can unlock it. I suppose this is to prevent people from stealing Apple devices and reselling them to pawn shops or on eBay and Craigslist, and it must be working. All thieves everywhere must know by now, don't even bother to try to steal an Apple device or a Tesla car, for as soon as you do it gets bricked from all the satellites in space. === ==== I'm writing this because I bought a nine year old iPad on eBay and have spent the last two weeks trying to get through to AL-SUPPORT Activation Lock support at Apple, asking them to unlock it. And of course they don't care, I am not the original owner of the device, and unless I am, it is as useless as a digital brick. Battery life, screen quality, beautiful craftsmanship of the item itself, nothing matters. It just sits there telling me I'm practically a criminal for even owning this device. No matter that the original owner gave up on it long ago, when even the simplest apps like YouTube and Gmail stopped working on it, by design, intentional planned-obsolescence coming down from Apple themselves. With the iOS getting relentlessly updated every year, all the apps get forcibly recompiled and anything old just doesn't work any more at all. They don't care about this device any more. It was just a real-world dongle they used to get information from and about the original owner, information they've got stored in their giant database in the Cloud. They don't really care about me at all. I imagine the universe is now littered with these devices, an Oort Cloud of them completely surrounding the planet, mentally bricked by annual iOS updates and physically bricked by Activation Locks, I'm a criminal for owning one, and were I to bring it to an Apple store to complain, they would have no useful help for me at all, "Buy a new one!" they'll tell me, "that's our company policy!" === ==== Who is causing the problem here --- me, or Apple?
- minimaul 5y ago
  Depends. If it was stolen from the original owner then you don't really own the device legally and this is the anti-theft part of activation lock functioning as designed. If you're an innocent third party to the original theft, your remedy is to get a full refund. If it was just because the original owner forgot to disable activation lock, you should be chasing them to unlock it for you. If they refuse, your remedy is to get a full refund. edit: reputable recycling places require you to have disabled activation lock on functional devices, or they don't pay out.
mastazi 5y ago
> the same thing everyone else gets 30-50% cheaper 1 year later. This is very true. I just got a previous-generation top-of-the-line CPU and GPU. It's way more power than I will ever need and if I went for latest gen I could have afforded barely mid-level for the same price[1]. Even taking into account the fact that latest gen is faster, I still got better performance for dollar (20-30% better depending on benchmarks). [1] With regards to the CPU I'm factoring in the saving of not having to buy a new motherboard.
jen20 5y ago
I bought a 30" Apple Cinema Display in the mid-2000s, and gave it away last year to a colleague who wanted to resurrect a period-correct Power Mac after upgrading to 5K screens. Not holding out much hope for the build quality to be the same sadly, but monitors certainly can be decade-long investments! FWIW 5K screens were 1100 apiece from Microcenter - vastly less money than the Cinema Display was in the UK back then!
- mgarfias 5y ago
  My kids are rocking my old 23” cinemas, the newest of which is 15 years old.

urthor 5y ago

Excellent point.

minimaul 5y ago

This is a good comment in general, but: > I think it can still make sense, but very often when people buy the premium in computers or displays they are getting the same thing everyone else gets 30-50% cheaper 1 year later. I'd normally agree, but the article's point is that this isn't happening with displays - we're stuck at 4K as the best available except for a handful of displays that are still expensive even years after introduction. I bought my LG Ultrafine 5K in 2018, and it launched in 2016. There's still no real alternative - we seem to be in a monitor progress limbo.

gumby 5y ago
I got one of the 4K ones last year and it was the same price as when introduced. The only price reduction was due to inflation. I assume the desktop monitor business is so low margin that it’s barely worth investing in these days.
gfxgirl 5y ago
There's a market of at least 1 (me) waiting for an HD-DPI wide display. All of the 34 - 38 inch displays are LD-DPI :( My LG 38" is 3840x1600. I want it to be 7680x3200 in the same size monitor
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Dell offers a 32” 8K monitor. Driving that beast needs two DPs on your graphics card, however.
salamandersauce 5y ago
Resolution is only a single spec. Other things like viewing angles, response time, refresh rate,brightness, HDR, etc. have been getting better and better for less. A premium 1080p monitor from 15 years ago will not be nearly as good as a modern reasoanbly priced one.

ivalm 5y ago

I am guessing scissors, esp if they get sharpened 2x/day will not last multiple decades (because sharpening an edge removes material).

Eric_WVGG 5y ago
He’s almost certainly referring to honing the blades. Actual sharpening would require equipment that would be just ridiculous to have around a hair salon.
- cycrutchfield 5y ago
  A stone? A strop with polishing compounds?
ProZsolt 5y ago
Not necessarily. You can sharpen a knife(and I assume a scissor) with a sharpening steel. Which won't remove any material just straighten the edge.
- greedo 5y ago
  Eventually that folds over after becoming brittle.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  Honing is different than sharpening. Sharpening removes material, like a pencil. Honing merely aligns material. A honing steel doesn't remove material, a sharpening steel does.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cehrlich 5y ago
High quality scissors, even with constant use, can easily last that long or even longer. Source: I used to work as a tailor. In fact many people in that industry prefer to use older German-made scissors as they are in many ways better than the stuff you can buy now.

the_pwner224 5y ago

8 years ago you had to pay $1k for a 1440p 27" sRGB IPS panel. 2 years ago I spent $800 on a 4k 27" 144 Hz monitor with >95% P3 coverage. Or another example: 8 years ago I spent $320 on a 1080p 27" (massive pixels) monitor with horrible color reproduction and contrast. 4 years ago I upgraded to a new monitor and for $300 I was able to get 4k 27" with >100% sRGB. And when you consider inflation, progress is even greater. It's the same with GPUs, and to a lesser extent CPUs and memory and storage. Moores law is great in many ways, but as a buyer of high end technology it always stings to see the same thing be 30-50% cheaper a few years later. Progress does seem to have slowed down within the past few years for monitors. I expect the pandemic is relevant there.

depereo 5y ago
GPU is a bad example. Models purchased in 2016 cost slightly more than that now, secondhand, after 5 years of usage.
- the_pwner224 5y ago
  If you take into account pandemic shortages / price inflation, of course. But a current $500 (MSRP) GPU thoroughly spanks a 5 year old $500 GPU. Even my 2 year old Radeon 5700xt is feeling out of date.
  - wtallis 5y ago
    A current-generation $500 MSRP GPU is actually selling for no less than $900, and it's not due to inflation or the pandemic—it's due to cryptocurrency.
    - setr 5y ago
      I thought crypto’s impact on GPUs largely ended, as they moved into far greater cost/efficiency ratios provided by ASICs? Is it for the non-bitcoin cryptos?
      - 5y ago

14 5y ago

How do the batteries wear out in non fixable ways? I always thought you could put in new cells and be back in business.

vvoaterr 5y ago

Regarding ridiculously-expensive Apple heirloom tools: Go to eBay right now, and buy any Activation-Locked Apple device. It's OK, I'll wait. === ==== OK, now: try to use it to do something. Anything. Something as simple as write a NOTEPAD note, or play one song from iTunes. === ==== Nope! You are surely getting screenfulls of information telling you, this Apple device has been locked and only the original owner can unlock it. I suppose this is to prevent people from stealing Apple devices and reselling them to pawn shops or on eBay and Craigslist, and it must be working. All thieves everywhere must know by now, don't even bother to try to steal an Apple device or a Tesla car, for as soon as you do it gets bricked from all the satellites in space. === ==== I'm writing this because I bought a nine year old iPad on eBay and have spent the last two weeks trying to get through to AL-SUPPORT Activation Lock support at Apple, asking them to unlock it. And of course they don't care, I am not the original owner of the device, and unless I am, it is as useless as a digital brick. Battery life, screen quality, beautiful craftsmanship of the item itself, nothing matters. It just sits there telling me I'm practically a criminal for even owning this device. No matter that the original owner gave up on it long ago, when even the simplest apps like YouTube and Gmail stopped working on it, by design, intentional planned-obsolescence coming down from Apple themselves. With the iOS getting relentlessly updated every year, all the apps get forcibly recompiled and anything old just doesn't work any more at all. They don't care about this device any more. It was just a real-world dongle they used to get information from and about the original owner, information they've got stored in their giant database in the Cloud. They don't really care about me at all. I imagine the universe is now littered with these devices, an Oort Cloud of them completely surrounding the planet, mentally bricked by annual iOS updates and physically bricked by Activation Locks, I'm a criminal for owning one, and were I to bring it to an Apple store to complain, they would have no useful help for me at all, "Buy a new one!" they'll tell me, "that's our company policy!" === ==== Who is causing the problem here --- me, or Apple?

minimaul 5y ago
Depends. If it was stolen from the original owner then you don't really own the device legally and this is the anti-theft part of activation lock functioning as designed. If you're an innocent third party to the original theft, your remedy is to get a full refund. If it was just because the original owner forgot to disable activation lock, you should be chasing them to unlock it for you. If they refuse, your remedy is to get a full refund. edit: reputable recycling places require you to have disabled activation lock on functional devices, or they don't pay out.

mastazi 5y ago

> the same thing everyone else gets 30-50% cheaper 1 year later. This is very true. I just got a previous-generation top-of-the-line CPU and GPU. It's way more power than I will ever need and if I went for latest gen I could have afforded barely mid-level for the same price[1]. Even taking into account the fact that latest gen is faster, I still got better performance for dollar (20-30% better depending on benchmarks). [1] With regards to the CPU I'm factoring in the saving of not having to buy a new motherboard.

jen20 5y ago

I bought a 30" Apple Cinema Display in the mid-2000s, and gave it away last year to a colleague who wanted to resurrect a period-correct Power Mac after upgrading to 5K screens. Not holding out much hope for the build quality to be the same sadly, but monitors certainly can be decade-long investments! FWIW 5K screens were 1100 apiece from Microcenter - vastly less money than the Cinema Display was in the UK back then!

mgarfias 5y ago
My kids are rocking my old 23” cinemas, the newest of which is 15 years old.