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It's still wild to me that toasters have always been $20 but extremely expensive lasers, digital chips, amps, motors, LCD screens worked their way down to $20 C
by _DeadFred_ 2y ago
It's still wild to me that toasters have always been $20 but extremely expensive lasers, digital chips, amps, motors, LCD screens worked their way down to $20 CD players.
- indymike 2y agoSo... Electric toasters came to market in the 1920s, priced from $15, eventually getting as low as $5. Adjusting for inflation, that $15 toaster cost $236.70 in 2025 USD. Today's $15 toaster would be about 90¢ in 1920s dollars... so it follows the story.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoOn average toasters have always been $20. Wasn't $5 an outlier during dotCom crash homegoods firesales? There are some outliers. I just think it's wild that some coils cost the same as a radioactive laser, ICs, amps, motors, etc. There's a certain minimum cost and the complexity doesn't matter.
- indymike 2y agoInvention is expensive. Innovation is less expensive. Production is (usually) the cheap part. Once the invention and innovation is paid off, it's just production...