[TulliusCicero]

> However, because nothing is ever profitable enough

This is a wrongheaded way of looking at it, since in a competitive market, those cost savings will eventually be passed onto the consumer.

If you think they just kept those new profits forever -- where did they go? Because grocery is an infamously low-margin business to be in, even now.

[ToucanLoucan]

> This is a wrongheaded way of looking at it, since in a competitive market, those cost savings will eventually be passed onto the consumer.

NEVER. In my LIFE. Have I seen this in action.

Literally every single category of product that I buy is more expensive now than when I was a kid. As far as I'm concerned this is a straight fucking myth until I see proof.

Like, surely, nearly 40 years on this planet, surely, by the law of probabilities, I would've seen SOMETHING get cheaper. SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

And before anyone says “TVs got cheaper,” yeah—because they’re made in sweatshops with subsidized rare earths and sold at a loss to get you into the ecosystem. That’s not market efficiency, that’s strategic manipulation.

[TulliusCicero]

> NEVER. In my LIFE. Have I seen this in action.

Then show me the profit margins? If they just pocketed all the money, where did it go?

> Literally every single category of product that I buy is more expensive now than when I was a kid.

I'm pretty confident this is one of those situations where as soon as I start to lay out out examples, they'll immediately be dismissed, but just in case that's not true:

Full price video games are WAY cheaper than they were in the SNES era that I grew up in. Factoring in inflation, even $70 games today are like half the price, or close to it. Even most digital deluxe and similar versions are substantially cheaper than SNES games were.

It's way, way, WAY easier to get by with cheap or free games these days. Free games basically didn't expect in the 90s other than demo discs maybe (and those typically were still bought as part of a magazine issue), whereas now there's plenty of free games where you can just ignore the gacha/skin elements if you want, and there's a bajillion demos that can be accessed totally free on every storefront.

Indie games? In the 90s, games from small development teams would still cost the full price or close to it, something like Silksong that's high quality and costs only $20 -- even at launch -- didn't exist.

I remember the 90s, I remember how most middle class families couldn't really afford all that many games each year, especially in the cartridge era. People are practically overflowing with video games now in comparison, it's crazy how much easier it is to build up a huge library.

Really, tons of electronics are way cheaper now than they used to be. A $1500 desktop computer in the early 90s was a reasonable mid-range price; even if you ignore inflation, you can get a perfectly capable desktop or laptop today for less than that, and if you factor in inflation, computers today are way cheaper (unless you want a high-end gaming PC).

[ToucanLoucan]

> Then show me the profit margins? If they just pocketed all the money, where did it go?

[ Insert set of news clips of various billionaires and their billions that they've gotten ever more of ]

> I'm pretty confident this is one of those situations where as soon as I start to lay out out examples, they'll immediately be dismissed

I mean, I'm going to take issue with these since they're all examples of video games which were, when I was a kid, an emerging medium. Like that's basic economies of scale, not to mention the cost of all computers have fallen substantially, why would video-games be exempt from that? And if you're anticipating that kind of response, why don't you pick more cut and dry examples? Groceries, rent, healthcare, childcare... Hell, try it with books. Books are CERTAINLY cheaper to produce today than they've ever been, and I'm not even counting e-books.

The cost of living has outpaced wages for decades, and the idea that "competition drives prices down" is a myth that only survives in Econ 101 classrooms and libertarian subreddits.

[TulliusCicero]

> [ Insert set of news clips of various billionaires and their billions that they've gotten ever more of ]

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't have an actual response.

We were talking about grocery stores. Feel free to show me the massive profit margins that grocery store companies have on their products that they apparently are all massively overcharging us for. That's your thesis, so it shouldn't be hard to find the data.

> I mean, I'm going to take issue with these

A reminder that what you said was:

> NEVER. In my LIFE. Have I seen this in action.

> Literally every single category of product that I buy is more expensive now than when I was a kid.

So I provided multiple examples against your "NEVER" that you immediately shrugged off. I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.

> not to mention the cost of all computers have fallen

Wait, so you just lied before? Why?

[ToucanLoucan]

> Yeah, I figured you wouldn't have an actual response.

You asked where it went. The top 1% of earners have nearly doubled their wealth in the last 5 years alone. That's the answer. The fact that your ideology and/or ambition to join them conflicts with it does not, in and of itself, make that not an "actual response."

Money is allegedly finite, at least it is whenever the subject of making society more equitable is raised. If all those people are so much wealthier, and if the economy is indeed a zero sum game, surely you must then acknowledge them having so much more, by necessity, means so many others must have less?

> So I provided multiple examples against your "NEVER" that you immediately shrugged off.

I said "I have never seen this in action" in specific reply to you saying:

> This is a wrongheaded way of looking at it, since in a competitive market, those cost savings will eventually be passed onto the consumer.

And beyond the blatant goal-post shift there that I must remind you, everyone can see, I feel it's appropriate to tear into your video game example because I think that's a lot trickier than you might:

First, the price stability of AAA games is not evidence of benevolent market forces. It’s a result of industry standardization, publisher control, and platform monopolies. Half-Life 2 co-launched Steam in 2004 and retailed for $60–$70, a price which stuck around for a couple of decades or so, and that’s before you factor in DLCs, deluxe editions, season passes, and microtransactions. The base price may look flat, but the real cost to access the full experience has ballooned. And unlike the cartridge era, you often don’t even get a physical product—just a license to access a server.

Second, this pricing model predates digital distribution. The idea that games got cheaper because of competition ignores the fact that prices held steady even as production and distribution costs plummeted. The savings from digital delivery, reduced packaging, and outsourced labor didn’t go to the consumer. They went to shareholders and executives. The top five game publishers have posted record profits year after year, even as they lay off staff and squeeze dev teams.

Third, pointing to video games and electronics as proof of market generosity is classic cherry-picking. These are industries uniquely shaped by global supply chains, massive economies of scale, and digital platforms that eliminate physical overhead. That’s not how groceries, rent, healthcare, or education work. In those sectors, prices have risen relentlessly while wages stagnate. If competitive markets reliably passed savings to consumers, we’d see it across the board, or hell, even just sometimes. Not just in industries that benefit from digital arbitrage and monopolistic control.

So no, video games didn’t "get cheaper" in any meaningful way, not really. They got more extractive, more fragmented, and more dependent on psychological monetization models.