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OK, I'll bite. Name 5 products or services that have significantly improved in quality at constant cost, or declined in USD price at constant quality, over the

by rphlx 13y ago

OK, I'll bite. Name 5 products or services that have significantly improved in quality at constant cost, or declined in USD price at constant quality, over the past 10 years (excl. high-volume offshored consumer electronics, which of course I'll grant you). [I tried pretty hard myself and all I came up with was, possibly, clothing].

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
Cars. TCO has dropped a lot due to maintenance costs dropping. Mean household size has also declined steadily for 3 decades. We choose to have more space and nicer things rather than work less.
- reeses 13y ago
  (I kind of took the 'ten years' thing and ran it back to when I was young, in the 80s and 90s, sorry. :-)) I don't think I ever have to change the oil in my car over the duration of my lease. Synthetic lubricants, tighter tolerances, and better seals are amazing. Plus, at what other time could you get a 400+ hp car that can get 26+ mpg? The safety features are insane. The wipers and lights come on automatically and the car buzzes (or so I am told) if I drowse off behind the wheel. I can listen to punk rock in the middle of Wyoming, but I won't have to because my car will plot a route around it. Clothing has gotten much better for less, but that's largely global supply chain. I checked into a hotel in China and my room had a pair of throwaway trainers for walking in the city. I can safely fly between any points in Europe with the change left over from a beer. I can walk into an optometrist and get a box of contact lenses for my astigmatic eyes and wear a clean, new pair every day, all for less than hard lenses cost decades ago and for which I would have to wait weeks with multiple fittings. And they still sucked, especially in a windstorm. Bicycles that would be insanely futuristic when I was a kid, with disc brakes, aluminum frames, and more gears than I need, cost the same as my hunk-of-steel Schwinn. Bread! Coffee! They are so good now! Best of all, my toilet cleans me.
enoch_r 13y ago
The BLS says that prices have increased about 3% every year since 1993. Many people claim that this estimate is obviously too low. I'm claiming that it's reasonable. To test my claim, you suggest naming products or services that have increased in price by 0% or less, cumulatively, over the last 10 years. That's not a good test of my claim.

by rphlx 13y ago

nazgulnarsil 13y ago

Cars. TCO has dropped a lot due to maintenance costs dropping. Mean household size has also declined steadily for 3 decades. We choose to have more space and nicer things rather than work less.

reeses 13y ago
(I kind of took the 'ten years' thing and ran it back to when I was young, in the 80s and 90s, sorry. :-)) I don't think I ever have to change the oil in my car over the duration of my lease. Synthetic lubricants, tighter tolerances, and better seals are amazing. Plus, at what other time could you get a 400+ hp car that can get 26+ mpg? The safety features are insane. The wipers and lights come on automatically and the car buzzes (or so I am told) if I drowse off behind the wheel. I can listen to punk rock in the middle of Wyoming, but I won't have to because my car will plot a route around it. Clothing has gotten much better for less, but that's largely global supply chain. I checked into a hotel in China and my room had a pair of throwaway trainers for walking in the city. I can safely fly between any points in Europe with the change left over from a beer. I can walk into an optometrist and get a box of contact lenses for my astigmatic eyes and wear a clean, new pair every day, all for less than hard lenses cost decades ago and for which I would have to wait weeks with multiple fittings. And they still sucked, especially in a windstorm. Bicycles that would be insanely futuristic when I was a kid, with disc brakes, aluminum frames, and more gears than I need, cost the same as my hunk-of-steel Schwinn. Bread! Coffee! They are so good now! Best of all, my toilet cleans me.

enoch_r 13y ago

The BLS says that prices have increased about 3% every year since 1993. Many people claim that this estimate is obviously too low. I'm claiming that it's reasonable. To test my claim, you suggest naming products or services that have increased in price by 0% or less, cumulatively, over the last 10 years. That's not a good test of my claim.