14 ms·

I built "Middle Class Museum", a tour of things that used to be affordable

70 points by syel 5mo ago

syel 5mo ago
I spent the last 2 months building ideagames.fun : satirical browser experiences about work, money, and modern life. The Middle Class Museum is a guided tour of things that used to be affordable. Starter homes. Pensions. Blockbuster Friday. Each exhibit has a "Today:" line. "Today: $450,000. You are renting Gary's basement." Built in vanilla HTML/CSS/JS — no frameworks, no backend, no database. Runs entirely in the browser. Would love any feedback on what works and what doesn't.
MarkusQ 5mo ago
Not adjusting for inflation and quality really damages the integrity of the comparisons, as does cherry picking your base examples. Taking your first, the $47K 3 bedroom starter home with a yard. In 2026 that would be $200K (cumulative inflation is a little over 4x[1]); picking a random US city[2] and looking on Zillow[3] I find that...yeah, you can get a comparable home today. There are certainly arguments to be made about tradeoffs, quality issues (though those aren't as obvious as you might initially suppose[4]) and so on. But just listing unadjusted price comparisons like this is disingenuous. [1] https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980?amount=1 [2] https://www.randomlists.com/random-us-cities https://www.randomlists.com/random-us-cities [3] https://www.zillow.com https://www.zillow.com [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo
- syel 5mo ago
  Thanks for the feedback. The whole experience/site is mainly satirical/humorous. It's not inflation adjusted cause I didn't want it turn into a finance piece tbh, but you're definitely right, if inflation adjusted most cards need to be re-built to account for inflation and better judge what we're getting today vs what we used to get
  - pjc50 5mo ago
    It's about money! How is it not a finance piece?
    - xattt 5mo ago
      “JUST A PRANK, BROS‼”
      - syel 5mo ago
        I like to call it satire actually
        neaden 5mo ago
        So you're making fun of people who think the past was more affordable?
        syel 5mo ago
        no, cause I personally think the past was more affordable
        neaden 5mo ago
        I don't get the satire then.
        wang_li 5mo ago
        He has a belief that is mainly supportable only if he cherry picks specific examples that don't contradict his belief system.
- pjc50 5mo ago
  Not adjusting for inflation makes it look completely stupid. There's one good effort - comparing a car to the salary of a car-worker. But it only has half the comparison (what are today's car workers earning?). That's the comparison that Marx would recognize: how long do the people making something have to work to buy the thing they made?
  - syel 5mo ago
    Will review the numbers this week and see how I can update all numbers to adjust for inflation while keeping the satirical angle
    - pjc50 5mo ago
      "The summer job" card gets this exactly right and is a good example. I'd paste the text, but you've somehow disabled select/copy/paste, UX strike number two.
  - alex43578 5mo ago
    Is the implicit expectation that people making something should have some correlation with their ability to buy that thing? The assembly-worker making a Civic and a 7 Series BMW are doing effectively the same thing, but the BMW assembler shouldn’t be getting paid 3 to 4x.
    - MarkusQ 5mo ago
      The reference to Marx and (implicitly) the labor theory of value renders the GP unserious. Just looking at the people doing the assembly (and not all the people in the supply chain), ignoring the time aspect (I doubt there's any product that costs more than one of the people assembling it would expect to make over the time it would take them to single-handedly create the product from scratch), and so on. It's a nonsensical position, meant to invoke a certain sort of feels, and nothing more.
      - ben_w 5mo ago
        > It's a nonsensical position, meant to invoke a certain sort of feels, and nothing more. It may be so, but those feelings are part of the disconnect and they themselves cause all sorts of problems - or benefits, if directed appropriately, e.g. the IKEA effect is part of the same thing: we put in effort so we think the result is worth that effort. Marx being wrong doesn't mean trade unions didn't rise for much of the 20th century on the basis of similar feelings, being in error didn't stop the USSR being one of the world's two superpowers for about half a century. If the employees are satisfied their labours will bear fruits then they historically have not minded much that billionaires skim the cream; but when they are not satisfied, revolutions come. Those are messy and unpleasant, but they come anyway.
- briffle 5mo ago
  > Not adjusting for inflation and quality really damages the integrity of the comparisons, as does cherry picking your base examples. But then they also need to make sure to also match salaries to inflation too.. Because wages have not kept up with inflation, which is the reason for most of this..
  - MarkusQ 5mo ago
    > wages have not kept up with inflation This is not true. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-adjusted-wages-increased-in-the-past-decades https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-ad...
- psadauskas 5mo ago
  Just "adjusting for inflation" isn't good enough. Minimum wage was $4/hr. Now its $8. An elementary school custodian could afford a mortgage, a car, support a family of 4 and go on vacation on just that single income. They had healthcare and a pension. You could work over the summer and pay for a year of college at a state school. Yes, the house now is more energy efficient. The car is safer. But if the price of everything went up 4x-10x, and the median income only went up 2x, AND you have to pay for more things that used to be included, then everything is more unaffordable, inflation be damned.
  - neaden 5mo ago
    "An elementary school custodian could afford a mortgage, a car, support a family of 4 and go on vacation on just that single income. " Can I ask what you are basing this off of? I'm fairly skeptical of this claim.
    - psadauskas 5mo ago
      The head custodian at my elementary school (in the 80s) was a friendly guy that loved talking with the kids. He'd talk about his life, ask us if we did anything fun over the summer, and tell us where he went with his wife and kids. The school was in a small town in the rural midwest, not particularly affluent, but not poor either. The elementary school where my kids went (in a much more wealthy district) doesn't even have a custodian that I'm aware of, just a 3rd-party cleaning service that hires immigrants for as cheap as possible, and I'm sure doesn't offer healthcare or even full-time work. They have too many highly-paid administrators to afford a custodian.
      - neaden 5mo ago
        Ok so you're moving the goalposts here. What you said was a custodian (who I'm assuming did a lot more than just clean) and now you've switched to a head custodian and are comparing him to contract workers. So you're comparing two different jobs in two different school districts. Now is it possible that they've eliminated or reduced those positions? Sure, but you haven't actually shown that at all. Like I could easily counter with the fact that the school my wife teaches at still has a head custodian but I don't know what his family situation is and we'd just be trading anecdotes. So do you have any actual evidence for your initial claim? Because the overall stats with wages and prices are the opposite from what you claim.
tectec 5mo ago
Pensions used to be free and great, until the company stole from the pension before they went bankrupt and you were left with nothing.
- gadders 5mo ago
  Pensions used to be great when you had final salary ones.
  - pjc50 5mo ago
    Unfortunately people stopped smoking. (the downside of 20th century work on increasing life expectancy is that most of it happens in retirement, making pensions much more expensive) edit: I have not done the maths, but I would not be surprised to discover that the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 2026 was much more than the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 1986, while at the same time the weekly amount of the earlier one would be higher. Because the more recent one has to spread the money over more years. (inflation adjusted as well)
    - gadders 5mo ago
      I'd retire later if I got a higher pension rate. i.e. Opt to retire at 65, but you get a defined contribution pot Opt to retire at 70, you get final salary pension.
      - ben_w 5mo ago
        FWIW, the UK state pension does go up if you defer it: https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/print https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/print
        gadders 5mo ago
        Yeah, but I want 2/3 of my salary when I retire, not £300/week.
tim-tday 5mo ago
Inflation adjusted?
- syel 5mo ago
  No, as it's mainly supposed to be a humorous/satirical take similar to other experiences on the site. I didn't intend for it to be a finance piece originally but I know if inflation adjusted, whole experience will change.
- mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
  Looking at an inflation calculator, the average rate since 1980 has been 3.06% over 46 years. Compounded, 1.0306^46 = 4.0. So, adjusting for inflation, a single income family in 1980 would be equivalent to a four-income family today. Since millennials currently get by with just two incomes, they actually come out way ahead when adjusted for inflation.
pjc50 5mo ago
Obligatory HN web design complaint: this uses horizontal instead of vertical scrolling, which is fine-ish, but does not work when using the scrollwheel.
- syel 5mo ago
  Thanks for the feedback , will work on this today.
aaaronic 5mo ago
I'm pretty sure I did not get to keep my shoes on through TSA in 2004. It may not have been mandatory nation-wide until ~2006, but the origin is a 2001 incident.
- mapmeld 5mo ago
  Yes I think the author is mixing it up with the liquids ban. And in my limited experience, at major airports with new scanners, people care much less about both of these now.
  - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
    At the expense that you have to do human observed naked scans. Pre 2001 US would freak the fuck out about that. It's 2026 normal, but like most things it is pre 2001 very very not normal.
megaman821 5mo ago
Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a mental illness.
- syel 5mo ago
  Agree, but if we take a wholistic approach, most things were more affordable. This is a satirical take not a literal financial comparison and I designed it to be that, but I think no can disagree that life in 80s and 90s was way more affordable.
  - xnx 5mo ago
    Disagree. Presenting partial information like this distorts and confuses people's understanding.
    - syel 5mo ago
      You are right, I think I mention that most experiences on the site are satirical but I don't mention it on the landing page to this experience, will add this today, will also add "not inflation adjusted' until I change the numbers to adjust for inflation.
  - megaman821 5mo ago
    Some things yes and some things no. It is not and cut-and-dry as you think. Look up the inflation adjust prices for a computer or a "big-screen" TV and realize almost no one pays anything near those prices for any consumer good. On the other hand there are a lot more people in the US and it is not like land is sprouting up from nowhere, so the price of land is a lot more. Most things though fall into what people's personal preferences are. Cars have more luxury, house are bigger and have better finishes, movies are huge spectacles, one person can't watch 8 infants, you get more than an aspirin from formerly untreatable diseases; roll all this back and prices will drop.
MyHonestOpinon 5mo ago
Nice work please continue with this effort. On the car comparative. I have a 2010 RAV4, and my wife drives a 2023 RAV4. I love mine, but even if it was perfectly kept. It is smaller, lighter, it has less equipment, I have seen older RAV4s and they look even smaller than mine. What is is the opposite of shrinkflation ? I don't know if it is social pressures or what is is causing us to expect things that are bigger and more expensive.
- syel 5mo ago
  Appreciate the feedback, will definitely be making some updates based on the comments I got here. There is social pressure definitely when it comes to buying decisions, I think over the past 15 years, the world has gone crazy in terms of car sizes where most people wanna drive only SUVs
- pjc50 5mo ago
  "Hedonic treadmill"? I'm annoyed that in the UK the prevalence of "SUV crossovers" has suddenly jacked all cars up by 10-20cm, especially at the bonnet line. Selection pressure (bollards are the natural predator) is at least keeping the width slightly under control.
- dole 5mo ago
  Swolvolution. Expecting things to be bigger but in strange places and not necessarily for the better
maldusiecle 5mo ago
Yeah it's really messed up that middle class people can't afford to...rent movies...anymore?
- bananamogul 5mo ago
  There's 4,000 movies available for free on YouTube. More if you pay for YT Premium. That's just one example...any streaming stick will give you loads more. True, you have to have Internet, but you're going to have Internet regardless. Compare to the 1980s where you had to drive to a Blockbuster and pay $3 or $4 a pop for VHS. And you can still rent movies. Heck, if you want to live in the 1990s, your local pawn shop or flea market has tons of DVDs you can buy for less than a 1990s rental.
  - no-name-here 5mo ago
    All good points - and that 1980s rental cost would be ~$11 inflation adjusted - for a rental at VHS quality where you also had the costs of driving to pickup/return the tape. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
sollewitt 5mo ago
This is US centric, but you can show this to anyone in any major city in the western world and they will nod. The problem is global. Any time you are told the problem is immigrants in your country or that your local politicians didn’t build enough housing - that’s not the root cause. The root cause is the inevitable centralization of all wealth in corporations who can dodge taxes. This affords them the ability to accrue assets endlessly, buy politicians, achieve monopolies and bump up the prices. There are 3 things that need to happen to restore the first frames: 1) some things like housing and healthcare must not be asset classes. It is unsustainable to demand profit growth year over year from either. 2) the wealth needs to be redistributed. It is a systemic risk for corporations and individuals to have accrued as much wealth and power as nations (and it doesn’t seem to be good for the mental health of those at the top) 3) we all need unions so workers can advocate for themselves and even the playing field. Including tech. I’m not a communist, I think capitalism broadly works, but it requires regulation. We deregulated and it’s made a mess, we need to wind that back and patch the bad logic.
- syel 5mo ago
  Yeah, I actually live in Toronto, and this was one the design decisions I was thinking about before building this, it's just that more people relate to the US. And I agree with the reasons you listed, immigration imo can be controlled, like what I see here in Canada, they seem to control the flow based on economic state and demand year to year.
bklosky 5mo ago
This is straight up AI generated economic disinformation. Are you seriously claiming that computers cost more in real terms today than 20 years ago?? Some of these goods (housing) do cost more, but a lot of these examples don't make any sense.
- trollbridge 5mo ago
  Most people would prefer housing to a fancier computer. The productivity gains from fancier computers haven’t accrued to workers either.
neutronicus 5mo ago
A townhouse can still be had for <300k in Baltimore
- syel 5mo ago
  Yeah, I am pretty sure that you can buy a house for less than $450k in multiple cities, commentary is meant to be humorous for most part
dgrin91 5mo ago
Some of these felt very cherry picked. E.g. 8% interest rate in banks? That probably means mortgage rates were 10-15%, where as they are now 5-6% $0 pensions? Thats just a lie? The pension comes out of your paycheck. Its literally a line item on your pay stub. Also this site would be better if you overlay inflation or something to highlight when/where costs rose. E.g. using the CPI inflation calculator the $7400 for a new car would be $28k today. $28k wont buy you a F150 today (starts at ~40k) but its a good chunk of the way, and there are other cars you can buy for $28k easy.
nayuki 5mo ago
A bunch of refutations: None of the prices are inflation-adjusted. That gives more sticker shock than reality. > The Starter Home / No bidding war. / Gary just... bought it. That was back when land was plentiful and cheap, and homes had fewer features and comforts. Now all the desirable land is taken, and existing homeowners don't want to increase density, so prices go up and newcomers get pushed farther out. NIMBYs and exclusionary zoning are a large part of the problem. > The Pension / Your employer saved for your retirement. I dislike the old-style "defined-benefit" pensions, because you are completely at the whim of your employer. They set the arbitrary terms of tenure (how much pension you receive in relation to how many years you work), pay-in, and payout. You're also reliant on your company staying solvent to pay you in retirement. Nope, I much prefer "defined-contribution" self-funded pensions where your account is segregated from everyone else, and usually you get to choose excellent low-cost broad-market index funds. In Canada, DC is RRSP, and I guess in the USA it's 401(k) and IRA. DC also allows you to job-hop much more easily because the amount you contributed to your retirement account is clearly yours and not a matter of company policy. > One-Income Household / Dad worked. Mom stayed home. I think that arrangement was bad for women's autonomy and rights, but someone more qualified than me can speak about it. > National Park Vacation / Pay $5. No reservation required. Well, the growth in parks didn't match population growth. Or there's a growth in domestic and international tourism in general. > The Savings Account / The bank paid you 8% a year I'm pretty sure that happened during a period when annual inflation was 10~15%, meaning that you lost money by "saving" cash. Also, interest is taxed at a much higher marginal rate than capital gains, so it's dumb to invest in cash instead of stocks. It is true, though, that in much of my adult life, the savings account interest rate is around 0~2%, making it a completely meaningless financial product to me. > c. 1994 / The Family Computer / $2000 You can buy an entry-level laptop for about $500 since the year 2010. The barrier to entry in getting a computer went down gradually each year. > c. 2000 / The $1 Slice / A massive, greasy slice of New York style pizza I bought a $1 slice in NYC in the year 2019 and it was a decent size. I haven't visited afterward so I can't say. > The DVD Collection / You owned your media. You can still buy Blu-ray discs of your favorite movies. Most people choose not to out of short-term convenience. > Flying / Free bags, shoes on Those features aren't "free". It costs the airline money and opportunity cost to move your luggage (excess room can be used for paid cargo shipments). Those features have just been unbundled so that people who don't need the feature don't pay it, people who need it pay it, and you don't have the non-users subsidizing the users. That's like saying a $50 buffet is "free" even though you'd be equally satisfied with a $20 meal paid à la carte. > 401k Matching / Free money Lolno, there's no such thing as free money. "Employer pays" still affects how much the employer spends on you, which ultimately affects their calculation on who to hire and how much to pay them. It only affects the split of how much of the employer's money gets paid to you as an unrestricted salary versus restricted programs like healthcare insurance and pensions. > The 99-Cent App / No accounts I'm pretty sure you need an Apple or Google account to buy the app in the first place. After you bought the app, you can reinstall it for free on any newer phone that you buy. > The Subsidized Smartphone I heard that the old days were not good, because the 2-year contract forced you to buy a higher tier cellular service plan than if you brought in a fully paid-off phone. Also, there are significant fees for breaking the 2-year contract. > Buying a House in a City / you could still buy a 2-bedroom in Austin for $210,000 Yeah, thank NIMBYs for that again. When residential construction can't keep up with demand (mostly due to regulatory reasons), prices go up. > The Stimulus Check / Billionaires blame inflation on you buying groceries with it. You don't believe that printing money causes inflation? WTF > Remote Work / Your company saved millions on office real estate. You make it sound bad. I think it was great - zero time spent commuting, access to amenities at home such as a kitchen, more privacy, better mood. > The Subscription Everything / You own nothing. Renting isn't necessarily worse than owning. There is a break-even point that is different for every person. Renting Netflix for $0.01/month would be awesome. Maybe most people will be happy to pay $10/mo to have access to an enormous media library. $100/mo would be unreasonable. Consider the alternative - how much per month does it cost to purchase physical media to derive the same amount of enjoyment from entertainment? > The Tip Screen / barista ... ask you to subsidize their wages because the corporation won't "The corporation" ultimately receives money from customers who pay for the product. If no customer paid tips, "the corporation" can't magically create money out of thin air to pay the employees more; the corp would need to raise prices on the menus (which I agree with). No, the question isn't whether "the corporation pays", because that's nonsense; it's whether people are obliged to pay because it clearly says so on the menu price, or generous people "voluntarily" pay more towards the barista's wages because they are socially "expected to". > The End. / You own nothing. You subscribe to everything. Your rent is higher than your parents' mortgage. It's worth repeating: Renting is not necessarily worse than owning. For housing, many people have done the analysis and I can point you to a heap of YouTube videos explaining the situation. There are both financial and non-financial aspects (e.g. Realtor fees, breaking a mortgage) to this comparison.
wang_li 5mo ago
Lots of problems with this. The noted lack of inflation adjustment. The savings interest item ignores the fact that loan interest rates were 10%+ when you could get a good rate on your savings account. The student loan one is just wrong, the average student loan debt in 2026 is $43k. You ignore the point of the avocado toast (what used to be called the latte factor) simply so you can make some pithy comment. If you don't buy $14 toast 5 days a week, you can save $3500 per year. If you do that for 5 years you have a great addition to your downpayment for a home. Or you can use the money saved to buy a brand-new Nissan Versa, a perfectly fine starter car for a young couple with 1 or 2 young kids, for $17,000. Blockbuster Friday comes out to 4 movies a month for $16. Compared to $16 for a streaming service that you can watch every single night. And everyone knows the experience of going to a video rental store and walking the aisles for what felt like hours trying to find something to watch, just a different kind of scrolling. In 30 years of working in IT, cubicles have been the norm. 30m from where I'm sitting right now there is a ping pong table. The break room is huge and has plenty of large, cushioned seating that you can lie down on and take a nap if you need to. As well as small private meeting spaces if you just have to get away from everyone. This is not a tech startup or FAANG. The summer job is still true for most state universities. Utah State University 2026 tuition and fees is $4500 per semester. If you don't want to pay subscriptions, don't subscribe to those services. You can trivially buy Bluray, DVD, and CDs. Or you can get DRM free music from multiple sources. You can stream spotify and youtube for free. OTA TV is still a thing. Apparently, I'm in a contrarian and argumentative mood today.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
SirMaster 5mo ago
8% savings accounts? It says today 0.01% below that, but there are definitely high yield saving accounts in the 4-5% range today... So sure it's half as good, if 8% really was common back then... but weren't loan interest rates even higher back then than today too?
SirMaster 5mo ago
Subsidized smartphone is definitely still here. I got my 17 Pro ($1100) from ATT for free which is almost twice the cost of the phones back then. And my monthly cost is only $35/mo as well for the 3 year term, for unlimited data too, which is cheaper than the data plans back then.
prewett 5mo ago
I think this is misleading unless you at least include the price after inflation. "OMG, transportation is out of control. The original Model T only cost $850!!" Well, $850 in 1908 was about $28,000 in 2025 [1], which not unreasonable, seeing as how the starting price (list) of a Honda Civic is about $24,000. The 2025 Civic is a way better car, though. [1] https://kevinsautos.com/faq/how-much-did-a-ford-model-t-cost-in-todays-money.html https://kevinsautos.com/faq/how-much-did-a-ford-model-t-cost...

70 points by syel 5mo ago

syel 5mo ago

I spent the last 2 months building ideagames.fun : satirical browser experiences about work, money, and modern life. The Middle Class Museum is a guided tour of things that used to be affordable. Starter homes. Pensions. Blockbuster Friday. Each exhibit has a "Today:" line. "Today: $450,000. You are renting Gary's basement." Built in vanilla HTML/CSS/JS — no frameworks, no backend, no database. Runs entirely in the browser. Would love any feedback on what works and what doesn't.

MarkusQ 5mo ago

Not adjusting for inflation and quality really damages the integrity of the comparisons, as does cherry picking your base examples. Taking your first, the $47K 3 bedroom starter home with a yard. In 2026 that would be $200K (cumulative inflation is a little over 4x[1]); picking a random US city[2] and looking on Zillow[3] I find that...yeah, you can get a comparable home today. There are certainly arguments to be made about tradeoffs, quality issues (though those aren't as obvious as you might initially suppose[4]) and so on. But just listing unadjusted price comparisons like this is disingenuous. [1] https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1980?amount=1 [2] https://www.randomlists.com/random-us-cities https://www.randomlists.com/random-us-cities [3] https://www.zillow.com https://www.zillow.com [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo

syel 5mo ago
Thanks for the feedback. The whole experience/site is mainly satirical/humorous. It's not inflation adjusted cause I didn't want it turn into a finance piece tbh, but you're definitely right, if inflation adjusted most cards need to be re-built to account for inflation and better judge what we're getting today vs what we used to get
- pjc50 5mo ago
  It's about money! How is it not a finance piece?
  - xattt 5mo ago
    “JUST A PRANK, BROS‼”
    - syel 5mo ago
      I like to call it satire actually
      - neaden 5mo ago
        So you're making fun of people who think the past was more affordable?
        syel 5mo ago
        no, cause I personally think the past was more affordable
        neaden 5mo ago
        I don't get the satire then.
        wang_li 5mo ago
        He has a belief that is mainly supportable only if he cherry picks specific examples that don't contradict his belief system.
pjc50 5mo ago
Not adjusting for inflation makes it look completely stupid. There's one good effort - comparing a car to the salary of a car-worker. But it only has half the comparison (what are today's car workers earning?). That's the comparison that Marx would recognize: how long do the people making something have to work to buy the thing they made?
- syel 5mo ago
  Will review the numbers this week and see how I can update all numbers to adjust for inflation while keeping the satirical angle
  - pjc50 5mo ago
    "The summer job" card gets this exactly right and is a good example. I'd paste the text, but you've somehow disabled select/copy/paste, UX strike number two.
- alex43578 5mo ago
  Is the implicit expectation that people making something should have some correlation with their ability to buy that thing? The assembly-worker making a Civic and a 7 Series BMW are doing effectively the same thing, but the BMW assembler shouldn’t be getting paid 3 to 4x.
  - MarkusQ 5mo ago
    The reference to Marx and (implicitly) the labor theory of value renders the GP unserious. Just looking at the people doing the assembly (and not all the people in the supply chain), ignoring the time aspect (I doubt there's any product that costs more than one of the people assembling it would expect to make over the time it would take them to single-handedly create the product from scratch), and so on. It's a nonsensical position, meant to invoke a certain sort of feels, and nothing more.
    - ben_w 5mo ago
      > It's a nonsensical position, meant to invoke a certain sort of feels, and nothing more. It may be so, but those feelings are part of the disconnect and they themselves cause all sorts of problems - or benefits, if directed appropriately, e.g. the IKEA effect is part of the same thing: we put in effort so we think the result is worth that effort. Marx being wrong doesn't mean trade unions didn't rise for much of the 20th century on the basis of similar feelings, being in error didn't stop the USSR being one of the world's two superpowers for about half a century. If the employees are satisfied their labours will bear fruits then they historically have not minded much that billionaires skim the cream; but when they are not satisfied, revolutions come. Those are messy and unpleasant, but they come anyway.
briffle 5mo ago
> Not adjusting for inflation and quality really damages the integrity of the comparisons, as does cherry picking your base examples. But then they also need to make sure to also match salaries to inflation too.. Because wages have not kept up with inflation, which is the reason for most of this..
- MarkusQ 5mo ago
  > wages have not kept up with inflation This is not true. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-adjusted-wages-increased-in-the-past-decades https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-have-inflation-ad...
psadauskas 5mo ago
Just "adjusting for inflation" isn't good enough. Minimum wage was $4/hr. Now its $8. An elementary school custodian could afford a mortgage, a car, support a family of 4 and go on vacation on just that single income. They had healthcare and a pension. You could work over the summer and pay for a year of college at a state school. Yes, the house now is more energy efficient. The car is safer. But if the price of everything went up 4x-10x, and the median income only went up 2x, AND you have to pay for more things that used to be included, then everything is more unaffordable, inflation be damned.
- neaden 5mo ago
  "An elementary school custodian could afford a mortgage, a car, support a family of 4 and go on vacation on just that single income. " Can I ask what you are basing this off of? I'm fairly skeptical of this claim.
  - psadauskas 5mo ago
    The head custodian at my elementary school (in the 80s) was a friendly guy that loved talking with the kids. He'd talk about his life, ask us if we did anything fun over the summer, and tell us where he went with his wife and kids. The school was in a small town in the rural midwest, not particularly affluent, but not poor either. The elementary school where my kids went (in a much more wealthy district) doesn't even have a custodian that I'm aware of, just a 3rd-party cleaning service that hires immigrants for as cheap as possible, and I'm sure doesn't offer healthcare or even full-time work. They have too many highly-paid administrators to afford a custodian.
    - neaden 5mo ago
      Ok so you're moving the goalposts here. What you said was a custodian (who I'm assuming did a lot more than just clean) and now you've switched to a head custodian and are comparing him to contract workers. So you're comparing two different jobs in two different school districts. Now is it possible that they've eliminated or reduced those positions? Sure, but you haven't actually shown that at all. Like I could easily counter with the fact that the school my wife teaches at still has a head custodian but I don't know what his family situation is and we'd just be trading anecdotes. So do you have any actual evidence for your initial claim? Because the overall stats with wages and prices are the opposite from what you claim.

tectec 5mo ago

Pensions used to be free and great, until the company stole from the pension before they went bankrupt and you were left with nothing.

gadders 5mo ago
Pensions used to be great when you had final salary ones.
- pjc50 5mo ago
  Unfortunately people stopped smoking. (the downside of 20th century work on increasing life expectancy is that most of it happens in retirement, making pensions much more expensive) edit: I have not done the maths, but I would not be surprised to discover that the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 2026 was much more than the total average pension paid to someone retiring at age 65 in 1986, while at the same time the weekly amount of the earlier one would be higher. Because the more recent one has to spread the money over more years. (inflation adjusted as well)
  - gadders 5mo ago
    I'd retire later if I got a higher pension rate. i.e. Opt to retire at 65, but you get a defined contribution pot Opt to retire at 70, you get final salary pension.
    - ben_w 5mo ago
      FWIW, the UK state pension does go up if you defer it: https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/print https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/print
      - gadders 5mo ago
        Yeah, but I want 2/3 of my salary when I retire, not £300/week.

tim-tday 5mo ago

Inflation adjusted?

syel 5mo ago
No, as it's mainly supposed to be a humorous/satirical take similar to other experiences on the site. I didn't intend for it to be a finance piece originally but I know if inflation adjusted, whole experience will change.
mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
Looking at an inflation calculator, the average rate since 1980 has been 3.06% over 46 years. Compounded, 1.0306^46 = 4.0. So, adjusting for inflation, a single income family in 1980 would be equivalent to a four-income family today. Since millennials currently get by with just two incomes, they actually come out way ahead when adjusted for inflation.

pjc50 5mo ago

Obligatory HN web design complaint: this uses horizontal instead of vertical scrolling, which is fine-ish, but does not work when using the scrollwheel.

syel 5mo ago
Thanks for the feedback , will work on this today.

aaaronic 5mo ago

I'm pretty sure I did not get to keep my shoes on through TSA in 2004. It may not have been mandatory nation-wide until ~2006, but the origin is a 2001 incident.

mapmeld 5mo ago
Yes I think the author is mixing it up with the liquids ban. And in my limited experience, at major airports with new scanners, people care much less about both of these now.
- _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
  At the expense that you have to do human observed naked scans. Pre 2001 US would freak the fuck out about that. It's 2026 normal, but like most things it is pre 2001 very very not normal.

megaman821 5mo ago

Even with these cherry-picked examples, plug in how things actually were. That $8,200 station wagon with at 48 month loan and the terrible 80's loan rates of 10-12% would be like $750/month now. Most of those cars wouldn't make it to 50k miles without a major repair. There were almost no safety features, seat belts weren't required to be worn and you could drink and drive. This weird fetishization of the past is a mental illness.

syel 5mo ago
Agree, but if we take a wholistic approach, most things were more affordable. This is a satirical take not a literal financial comparison and I designed it to be that, but I think no can disagree that life in 80s and 90s was way more affordable.
- xnx 5mo ago
  Disagree. Presenting partial information like this distorts and confuses people's understanding.
  - syel 5mo ago
    You are right, I think I mention that most experiences on the site are satirical but I don't mention it on the landing page to this experience, will add this today, will also add "not inflation adjusted' until I change the numbers to adjust for inflation.
- megaman821 5mo ago
  Some things yes and some things no. It is not and cut-and-dry as you think. Look up the inflation adjust prices for a computer or a "big-screen" TV and realize almost no one pays anything near those prices for any consumer good. On the other hand there are a lot more people in the US and it is not like land is sprouting up from nowhere, so the price of land is a lot more. Most things though fall into what people's personal preferences are. Cars have more luxury, house are bigger and have better finishes, movies are huge spectacles, one person can't watch 8 infants, you get more than an aspirin from formerly untreatable diseases; roll all this back and prices will drop.

MyHonestOpinon 5mo ago

Nice work please continue with this effort. On the car comparative. I have a 2010 RAV4, and my wife drives a 2023 RAV4. I love mine, but even if it was perfectly kept. It is smaller, lighter, it has less equipment, I have seen older RAV4s and they look even smaller than mine. What is is the opposite of shrinkflation ? I don't know if it is social pressures or what is is causing us to expect things that are bigger and more expensive.

syel 5mo ago
Appreciate the feedback, will definitely be making some updates based on the comments I got here. There is social pressure definitely when it comes to buying decisions, I think over the past 15 years, the world has gone crazy in terms of car sizes where most people wanna drive only SUVs
pjc50 5mo ago
"Hedonic treadmill"? I'm annoyed that in the UK the prevalence of "SUV crossovers" has suddenly jacked all cars up by 10-20cm, especially at the bonnet line. Selection pressure (bollards are the natural predator) is at least keeping the width slightly under control.
dole 5mo ago
Swolvolution. Expecting things to be bigger but in strange places and not necessarily for the better

maldusiecle 5mo ago

Yeah it's really messed up that middle class people can't afford to...rent movies...anymore?

bananamogul 5mo ago
There's 4,000 movies available for free on YouTube. More if you pay for YT Premium. That's just one example...any streaming stick will give you loads more. True, you have to have Internet, but you're going to have Internet regardless. Compare to the 1980s where you had to drive to a Blockbuster and pay $3 or $4 a pop for VHS. And you can still rent movies. Heck, if you want to live in the 1990s, your local pawn shop or flea market has tons of DVDs you can buy for less than a 1990s rental.
- no-name-here 5mo ago
  All good points - and that 1980s rental cost would be ~$11 inflation adjusted - for a rental at VHS quality where you also had the costs of driving to pickup/return the tape. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

sollewitt 5mo ago

This is US centric, but you can show this to anyone in any major city in the western world and they will nod. The problem is global. Any time you are told the problem is immigrants in your country or that your local politicians didn’t build enough housing - that’s not the root cause. The root cause is the inevitable centralization of all wealth in corporations who can dodge taxes. This affords them the ability to accrue assets endlessly, buy politicians, achieve monopolies and bump up the prices. There are 3 things that need to happen to restore the first frames: 1) some things like housing and healthcare must not be asset classes. It is unsustainable to demand profit growth year over year from either. 2) the wealth needs to be redistributed. It is a systemic risk for corporations and individuals to have accrued as much wealth and power as nations (and it doesn’t seem to be good for the mental health of those at the top) 3) we all need unions so workers can advocate for themselves and even the playing field. Including tech. I’m not a communist, I think capitalism broadly works, but it requires regulation. We deregulated and it’s made a mess, we need to wind that back and patch the bad logic.

syel 5mo ago
Yeah, I actually live in Toronto, and this was one the design decisions I was thinking about before building this, it's just that more people relate to the US. And I agree with the reasons you listed, immigration imo can be controlled, like what I see here in Canada, they seem to control the flow based on economic state and demand year to year.

bklosky 5mo ago

This is straight up AI generated economic disinformation. Are you seriously claiming that computers cost more in real terms today than 20 years ago?? Some of these goods (housing) do cost more, but a lot of these examples don't make any sense.

trollbridge 5mo ago
Most people would prefer housing to a fancier computer. The productivity gains from fancier computers haven’t accrued to workers either.

neutronicus 5mo ago

A townhouse can still be had for <300k in Baltimore

syel 5mo ago
Yeah, I am pretty sure that you can buy a house for less than $450k in multiple cities, commentary is meant to be humorous for most part

dgrin91 5mo ago

Some of these felt very cherry picked. E.g. 8% interest rate in banks? That probably means mortgage rates were 10-15%, where as they are now 5-6% $0 pensions? Thats just a lie? The pension comes out of your paycheck. Its literally a line item on your pay stub. Also this site would be better if you overlay inflation or something to highlight when/where costs rose. E.g. using the CPI inflation calculator the $7400 for a new car would be $28k today. $28k wont buy you a F150 today (starts at ~40k) but its a good chunk of the way, and there are other cars you can buy for $28k easy.

nayuki 5mo ago

A bunch of refutations: None of the prices are inflation-adjusted. That gives more sticker shock than reality. > The Starter Home / No bidding war. / Gary just... bought it. That was back when land was plentiful and cheap, and homes had fewer features and comforts. Now all the desirable land is taken, and existing homeowners don't want to increase density, so prices go up and newcomers get pushed farther out. NIMBYs and exclusionary zoning are a large part of the problem. > The Pension / Your employer saved for your retirement. I dislike the old-style "defined-benefit" pensions, because you are completely at the whim of your employer. They set the arbitrary terms of tenure (how much pension you receive in relation to how many years you work), pay-in, and payout. You're also reliant on your company staying solvent to pay you in retirement. Nope, I much prefer "defined-contribution" self-funded pensions where your account is segregated from everyone else, and usually you get to choose excellent low-cost broad-market index funds. In Canada, DC is RRSP, and I guess in the USA it's 401(k) and IRA. DC also allows you to job-hop much more easily because the amount you contributed to your retirement account is clearly yours and not a matter of company policy. > One-Income Household / Dad worked. Mom stayed home. I think that arrangement was bad for women's autonomy and rights, but someone more qualified than me can speak about it. > National Park Vacation / Pay $5. No reservation required. Well, the growth in parks didn't match population growth. Or there's a growth in domestic and international tourism in general. > The Savings Account / The bank paid you 8% a year I'm pretty sure that happened during a period when annual inflation was 10~15%, meaning that you lost money by "saving" cash. Also, interest is taxed at a much higher marginal rate than capital gains, so it's dumb to invest in cash instead of stocks. It is true, though, that in much of my adult life, the savings account interest rate is around 0~2%, making it a completely meaningless financial product to me. > c. 1994 / The Family Computer / $2000 You can buy an entry-level laptop for about $500 since the year 2010. The barrier to entry in getting a computer went down gradually each year. > c. 2000 / The $1 Slice / A massive, greasy slice of New York style pizza I bought a $1 slice in NYC in the year 2019 and it was a decent size. I haven't visited afterward so I can't say. > The DVD Collection / You owned your media. You can still buy Blu-ray discs of your favorite movies. Most people choose not to out of short-term convenience. > Flying / Free bags, shoes on Those features aren't "free". It costs the airline money and opportunity cost to move your luggage (excess room can be used for paid cargo shipments). Those features have just been unbundled so that people who don't need the feature don't pay it, people who need it pay it, and you don't have the non-users subsidizing the users. That's like saying a $50 buffet is "free" even though you'd be equally satisfied with a $20 meal paid à la carte. > 401k Matching / Free money Lolno, there's no such thing as free money. "Employer pays" still affects how much the employer spends on you, which ultimately affects their calculation on who to hire and how much to pay them. It only affects the split of how much of the employer's money gets paid to you as an unrestricted salary versus restricted programs like healthcare insurance and pensions. > The 99-Cent App / No accounts I'm pretty sure you need an Apple or Google account to buy the app in the first place. After you bought the app, you can reinstall it for free on any newer phone that you buy. > The Subsidized Smartphone I heard that the old days were not good, because the 2-year contract forced you to buy a higher tier cellular service plan than if you brought in a fully paid-off phone. Also, there are significant fees for breaking the 2-year contract. > Buying a House in a City / you could still buy a 2-bedroom in Austin for $210,000 Yeah, thank NIMBYs for that again. When residential construction can't keep up with demand (mostly due to regulatory reasons), prices go up. > The Stimulus Check / Billionaires blame inflation on you buying groceries with it. You don't believe that printing money causes inflation? WTF > Remote Work / Your company saved millions on office real estate. You make it sound bad. I think it was great - zero time spent commuting, access to amenities at home such as a kitchen, more privacy, better mood. > The Subscription Everything / You own nothing. Renting isn't necessarily worse than owning. There is a break-even point that is different for every person. Renting Netflix for $0.01/month would be awesome. Maybe most people will be happy to pay $10/mo to have access to an enormous media library. $100/mo would be unreasonable. Consider the alternative - how much per month does it cost to purchase physical media to derive the same amount of enjoyment from entertainment? > The Tip Screen / barista ... ask you to subsidize their wages because the corporation won't "The corporation" ultimately receives money from customers who pay for the product. If no customer paid tips, "the corporation" can't magically create money out of thin air to pay the employees more; the corp would need to raise prices on the menus (which I agree with). No, the question isn't whether "the corporation pays", because that's nonsense; it's whether people are obliged to pay because it clearly says so on the menu price, or generous people "voluntarily" pay more towards the barista's wages because they are socially "expected to". > The End. / You own nothing. You subscribe to everything. Your rent is higher than your parents' mortgage. It's worth repeating: Renting is not necessarily worse than owning. For housing, many people have done the analysis and I can point you to a heap of YouTube videos explaining the situation. There are both financial and non-financial aspects (e.g. Realtor fees, breaking a mortgage) to this comparison.

wang_li 5mo ago

Lots of problems with this. The noted lack of inflation adjustment. The savings interest item ignores the fact that loan interest rates were 10%+ when you could get a good rate on your savings account. The student loan one is just wrong, the average student loan debt in 2026 is $43k. You ignore the point of the avocado toast (what used to be called the latte factor) simply so you can make some pithy comment. If you don't buy $14 toast 5 days a week, you can save $3500 per year. If you do that for 5 years you have a great addition to your downpayment for a home. Or you can use the money saved to buy a brand-new Nissan Versa, a perfectly fine starter car for a young couple with 1 or 2 young kids, for $17,000. Blockbuster Friday comes out to 4 movies a month for $16. Compared to $16 for a streaming service that you can watch every single night. And everyone knows the experience of going to a video rental store and walking the aisles for what felt like hours trying to find something to watch, just a different kind of scrolling. In 30 years of working in IT, cubicles have been the norm. 30m from where I'm sitting right now there is a ping pong table. The break room is huge and has plenty of large, cushioned seating that you can lie down on and take a nap if you need to. As well as small private meeting spaces if you just have to get away from everyone. This is not a tech startup or FAANG. The summer job is still true for most state universities. Utah State University 2026 tuition and fees is $4500 per semester. If you don't want to pay subscriptions, don't subscribe to those services. You can trivially buy Bluray, DVD, and CDs. Or you can get DRM free music from multiple sources. You can stream spotify and youtube for free. OTA TV is still a thing. Apparently, I'm in a contrarian and argumentative mood today.

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SirMaster 5mo ago

8% savings accounts? It says today 0.01% below that, but there are definitely high yield saving accounts in the 4-5% range today... So sure it's half as good, if 8% really was common back then... but weren't loan interest rates even higher back then than today too?

SirMaster 5mo ago

Subsidized smartphone is definitely still here. I got my 17 Pro ($1100) from ATT for free which is almost twice the cost of the phones back then. And my monthly cost is only $35/mo as well for the 3 year term, for unlimited data too, which is cheaper than the data plans back then.

prewett 5mo ago

I think this is misleading unless you at least include the price after inflation. "OMG, transportation is out of control. The original Model T only cost $850!!" Well, $850 in 1908 was about $28,000 in 2025 [1], which not unreasonable, seeing as how the starting price (list) of a Honda Civic is about $24,000. The 2025 Civic is a way better car, though. [1] https://kevinsautos.com/faq/how-much-did-a-ford-model-t-cost-in-todays-money.html https://kevinsautos.com/faq/how-much-did-a-ford-model-t-cost...