5 ms·

That's not true. Many technologies get more expensive over time, as labor gets more expensive or as certain skills fall by the wayside, not everything is mass m

That's not true. Many technologies get more expensive over time, as labor gets more expensive or as certain skills fall by the wayside, not everything is mass market. Have you tried getting a grandfather clock repaired lately?

simianwords 8mo ago
"repairing a unique clock" getting costlier doesn't mean technology hasn't gotten cheaper. check out whether clocks have gotten cheaper in general. the answer is that it has. there is no economy of scale here in repairing a single clock. its not relevant to bring it up here.
- ipaddr 8mo ago
  Clocks prices have gone up since 2020. Unless a cheaper better way to make clocks has emerged inflation causes prices to grow.
  - fooker 8mo ago
    Luxury watches have gone up, 'clocks' as a technology is cheaper than ever. You can buy one for 90 cents on temu.
    - ipaddr 8mo ago
      The landing cost for that 90 cent watch has gone way up. Shipping and to some degree taxes has pushed the price higher.
      - pas 8mo ago
        that's not the technology of course it's silly to talk about manufacturing methods and yield and cost efficiency without having an economy to embed all of this into, but ... technology got cheaper means that we have practical knowledge of how to make cheap clocks (given certain supply chains, given certain volume, and so and so) we can make very cheap very accurate clocks that can be embedded into whatever devices, but it requires the availability of fabs capable of doing MEMS components, supply materials, etc.
  - simianwords 8mo ago
    not true, clocks have gone down after accounting for inflation. verified using ChatGPT.
    - ipaddr 8mo ago
      You can't account for inflation because the price increase is inflation.
      - simianwords 8mo ago
        this is not true
      - pas 8mo ago
        you can look at a basket of goods that doesn't have your specific product and compare directly but inflation is the general price level increase, this can be used as a deflator to get the price of whatever product in past/future money amount to see how the price of the product changed in "real" terms (ie. relative to the general price level change)
    - peaseagee 8mo ago
      You cannot verify anything using a tool that cannot validate truth.
esafak 8mo ago
Instead of advancing tenuous examples you could suggest a realistic mechanism by which costs could rise, such as a Chinese advance on Taiwan, effecting TSMC, etc.
groby_b 8mo ago
No. You don't get to make "technology gets more expensive over time" statements for deprecated technologies. Getting a bespoke flintstone axe is also pretty expensive, and has also absolutely no relevance to modern life. These discussions must, if they are to be useful, center in a population experience, not in unique personal moments.
- solomonb 8mo ago
  okay how about the Francis Scott Key Bridge? https://marylandmatters.org/2025/11/17/key-bridge-replacement-costs-soar-as-high-as-5-2-billion-opening-delayed-to-2030/ https://marylandmatters.org/2025/11/17/key-bridge-replacemen...
  - groby_b 8mo ago
    You will get a different bridge. With very different technology. Same as "I can't repair my grandfather clock cheaply". In general, there are several things that are true for bridges that aren't true for most technology: * Technology has massively improved, but most people are not realizing that. (E.g. the Bay Bridge cost significantly more than the previous version, but that's because we'd like to not fall down again in the next earthquake) * We still have little idea how to reason about the cost of bridges in general. (Seriously. It's an active research topic) * It's a tiny market, with the major vendors forming an oligopoly * It's infrastructure, not a standard good * The buy side is almost exclusively governments. All of these mean expensive goods that are completely non-repeatable. You can't build the same bridge again. And on top of that, in a distorted market. But sure, the cost of "one bridge, please" has gone up over time.
    - fooker 8mo ago
      > But sure, the cost of "one bridge, please" has gone up over time. Even if you adjust for inflation?
      - groby_b 8mo ago
        Depends, do we care about TCO? Also, can I pick the set of bridges I compare? OK, kidding aside: If you deeply care, you can probably mine the Federal Highway Administration's bridge construction database: https://fhwaapps.fhwa.dot.gov/upacsp/tm?transName=MenuSystem&action=buildHTML https://fhwaapps.fhwa.dot.gov/upacsp/tm?transName=MenuSystem... I don't think the question is answerable in a meaningful way. Bridges are one-off projects with long life spans, comparing cost over time requires a lot of squinting just so.
willio58 8mo ago
Repairing grandfather clocks isn't more expensive now because it's gotten any harder; it's because the popularity of grandfather clocks is basically nonexistent compared to anything else to tell time.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  Doesn't need to be any particular reason to disprove the notion that technology only gets cheaper.
emtel 8mo ago
Time-keeping is vastly cheaper. People don't want grandfather clocks. They want to tell time. And they can, more accurately, more easily, and much cheaper than their ancestors.
epidemiology 8mo ago
Or riding in an uber?

simianwords 8mo ago

"repairing a unique clock" getting costlier doesn't mean technology hasn't gotten cheaper. check out whether clocks have gotten cheaper in general. the answer is that it has. there is no economy of scale here in repairing a single clock. its not relevant to bring it up here.

ipaddr 8mo ago
Clocks prices have gone up since 2020. Unless a cheaper better way to make clocks has emerged inflation causes prices to grow.
- fooker 8mo ago
  Luxury watches have gone up, 'clocks' as a technology is cheaper than ever. You can buy one for 90 cents on temu.
  - ipaddr 8mo ago
    The landing cost for that 90 cent watch has gone way up. Shipping and to some degree taxes has pushed the price higher.
    - pas 8mo ago
      that's not the technology of course it's silly to talk about manufacturing methods and yield and cost efficiency without having an economy to embed all of this into, but ... technology got cheaper means that we have practical knowledge of how to make cheap clocks (given certain supply chains, given certain volume, and so and so) we can make very cheap very accurate clocks that can be embedded into whatever devices, but it requires the availability of fabs capable of doing MEMS components, supply materials, etc.
- simianwords 8mo ago
  not true, clocks have gone down after accounting for inflation. verified using ChatGPT.
  - ipaddr 8mo ago
    You can't account for inflation because the price increase is inflation.
    - simianwords 8mo ago
      this is not true
    - pas 8mo ago
      you can look at a basket of goods that doesn't have your specific product and compare directly but inflation is the general price level increase, this can be used as a deflator to get the price of whatever product in past/future money amount to see how the price of the product changed in "real" terms (ie. relative to the general price level change)
  - peaseagee 8mo ago
    You cannot verify anything using a tool that cannot validate truth.

esafak 8mo ago

Instead of advancing tenuous examples you could suggest a realistic mechanism by which costs could rise, such as a Chinese advance on Taiwan, effecting TSMC, etc.

groby_b 8mo ago

No. You don't get to make "technology gets more expensive over time" statements for deprecated technologies. Getting a bespoke flintstone axe is also pretty expensive, and has also absolutely no relevance to modern life. These discussions must, if they are to be useful, center in a population experience, not in unique personal moments.

solomonb 8mo ago
okay how about the Francis Scott Key Bridge? https://marylandmatters.org/2025/11/17/key-bridge-replacement-costs-soar-as-high-as-5-2-billion-opening-delayed-to-2030/ https://marylandmatters.org/2025/11/17/key-bridge-replacemen...
- groby_b 8mo ago
  You will get a different bridge. With very different technology. Same as "I can't repair my grandfather clock cheaply". In general, there are several things that are true for bridges that aren't true for most technology: * Technology has massively improved, but most people are not realizing that. (E.g. the Bay Bridge cost significantly more than the previous version, but that's because we'd like to not fall down again in the next earthquake) * We still have little idea how to reason about the cost of bridges in general. (Seriously. It's an active research topic) * It's a tiny market, with the major vendors forming an oligopoly * It's infrastructure, not a standard good * The buy side is almost exclusively governments. All of these mean expensive goods that are completely non-repeatable. You can't build the same bridge again. And on top of that, in a distorted market. But sure, the cost of "one bridge, please" has gone up over time.
  - fooker 8mo ago
    > But sure, the cost of "one bridge, please" has gone up over time. Even if you adjust for inflation?
    - groby_b 8mo ago
      Depends, do we care about TCO? Also, can I pick the set of bridges I compare? OK, kidding aside: If you deeply care, you can probably mine the Federal Highway Administration's bridge construction database: https://fhwaapps.fhwa.dot.gov/upacsp/tm?transName=MenuSystem&action=buildHTML https://fhwaapps.fhwa.dot.gov/upacsp/tm?transName=MenuSystem... I don't think the question is answerable in a meaningful way. Bridges are one-off projects with long life spans, comparing cost over time requires a lot of squinting just so.

willio58 8mo ago

Repairing grandfather clocks isn't more expensive now because it's gotten any harder; it's because the popularity of grandfather clocks is basically nonexistent compared to anything else to tell time.

direwolf20 8mo ago
Doesn't need to be any particular reason to disprove the notion that technology only gets cheaper.

emtel 8mo ago

Time-keeping is vastly cheaper. People don't want grandfather clocks. They want to tell time. And they can, more accurately, more easily, and much cheaper than their ancestors.

epidemiology 8mo ago

Or riding in an uber?