[pluc]

Are you waiting for things to get cheaper? Have you been around the last 20 years or so? Nothing gets cheaper for consumers in a capitalist society.

I remember in Canada, in 2001 right when americans were at war with the entire middle east and gas prices for the first time went over a dollar a litre. People kept saying that it was understandable that it affected gas prices because the supply chain got more expensive. It never went below a dollar since. Why would it? You got people to accept a higher price, you're just gonna walk that back when problems go away? Or would you maybe take the difference as profits? Since then it seems the industry has learned to have its supply exclusively in war zones, we're at 1.70$ now. Pipeline blows up in Russia? Hike. China snooping around Taiwan? Hike. US bombing Yemen? Hike. Israel committing genocide? Hike. ISIS? Hike.

There is no scenario where prices go down except to quell unrest. AI will not make anything cheaper.

[Workaccount2]

>You got people to accept a higher price, you're just gonna walk that back when problems go away?

The thing about capitalism that is seemingly never taught, but quickly learned (when you join even the lowest rung of the capitalist class, i.e. even having an etsy shop), is that competition lowers prices and kills greed, while being a tool of greed itself.

The conspiracy to get around this cognitive dissonance is "price fixing", but in order to price fix you cannot be greedy, because if you are greedy and price fix, your greed will drive you to undercut everyone else in the agreement. So price fixing never really works, except those like 3 cases out of the hundreds of billions of products sold daily, that people repeat incessantly for 20 years now.

Money flows to the one with the best price, not the highest price. The best price is what makes people rich. When the best price is out of reach though, people will drum up conspiracy about it, which I guess should be expected.

[jama211]

Except petrol is significantly cheaper than it was once you account for inflation.

[Y-bar]

And once you account for externalities, is it still cheaper?

[jama211]

On average yes, that’s why it’s a bad example. There are many excellent examples of things that can be used to show the massive cost of living issue, wage stagnation, etc. it’s just petrol isn’t a great one.

[pluc]

For who?

[jama211]

Everyone. That’s what “the price is lower” means. Don’t paint me as someone who doesn’t understand wage stagnation or cost of living crisis, I fully understand and am on board with those issues. My point is simply that petrol is a bad example the way OP used it.

[llmslave2]

Actually things have gotten massively cheaper under capitalism. Unfortunately at the same time, governments have been inflating the currency year over year and as the decline of prices slows down as innovation matures, inflation finally catches up and starts raising prices.

[lkbm]

Reminder: Prices regularly drop in capitalist economies. Food used to be 25% of household spending. Clothing was also pretty high. More recently, electronics have dropped dramatically. TVs used to be big ticket items. I have unlimited cell data for $30 a month. My dad bought his first computer for around $3000 in 1982 dollars.

Prices for LLM tokens has also dramatically dropped. Anyone spending more is either using it a ton more or (more likely) using a much more capable model.

[confidantlake]

Education, health care, housing...

[sneak]

These have all fallen massively in price, too. Many billions more afford education than was possible before. Economies of scale have brought manufacturing costs for housing down, and now people live in larger, better structures than ever before.

Then you have the US, which artificially constrains the supply of new doctors, makes it illegal to open new hospitals without explicit government approval, massively subsidizes loans for education, causing waste, inefficiency, and skyrocketing prices in one specific market…

Fortunately fewer than 4% of humans live there.

[lkbm]

Yes, some things go up in prices. Would you conclude from that fact that no prices go down? Because that's the claim I'm responding to.

[underlipton]

buzzer sound

Zero incorporation of externalities. Food is less nutritious and raises healthcare costs. Clothing is less durable and has to be re-bought more often, and also sheds microplastics, which raises healthcare costs. Decent TVs are still big-ticket items, and you have to buy a separate sound system to meet the same sonic fidelity as old CRT TVs, and you HAVE to pay for internet (if not for content, often just to set up the device), AND everything you do on the device is sent to the manufacturer to sell (this is the actual subsidy driving down prices), which contributes to tech/social media engagement-driven, addiction-oriented, psychology-destroying panopticon, which... raises healthcare costs.

>Prices for LLM tokens has also dramatically dropped.

Energy bill.

[jama211]

buzzer sound is an incredibly obnoxious way to start a comment and all you did after that is present yourself with exactly as much dignity as you deserve in return.

[underlipton]

"Reminder" is just as patronizing and probably the cue I was responding to. I don't regret it, because on top of meeting his "obnoxious" framing with my own, the substance of my reply was also more correct. Your busy-body response was even less necessary and I hope that my refusal to take a conciliatory tone vexes you further. Have a nice day.

[jama211]

Oh look the liar continues to lie. How surprising.

[underlipton]

What are you talking about.

[jlawson]

> Food is less nutritious

You can buy the exact same diet as decades ago. Eggs, flour, rice, vegetable oil, beef, chicken - do you think any of these are "less nutritious"?

People are also fatter now, and live much longer.

>you have to buy a separate sound system to meet the same sonic fidelity as old CRT TVs

When you see a device like this does the term 'sonic fidelity' come to mind?

https://www.cohenusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/blogphot...

[underlipton]

>do you think any of these are "less nutritious"?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10969708/

>When you see a device like this does the term 'sonic fidelity' come to mind?

Your straw man is funny, because yes, actually. Certainly when it was new. Vintage speakers are sought-after; well-maintained, and driven by modern sound processing, they sound great. Let alone that I was personally speaking of the types of sets that flat-panel TVs supplanted, the late 90s/early 2000s CRTs.