[groby_b]

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.

[ipaddr]

I purchased a 5T drive in 2019 and the price is higher now despite newer better drives going on the market since.

Not much has down in price over the last few years.

[groby_b]

Price volatility exists.

Meanwhile the overall price of storage has been going down consistently: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-comput...

[solomonb]

okay how about the Francis Scott Key Bridge?

https://marylandmatters.org/2025/11/17/key-bridge-replacemen...

[groby_b]

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.

[solomonb]

This seems largely the same as any other technology. The prices of new technologies go down initially as we scale up and optimize it's production, but as soon as demand fades, due to newer technology or whatever, the cost of that technology goes up again.

[fooker]

> But sure, the cost of "one bridge, please" has gone up over time.

Even if you adjust for inflation?

[groby_b]

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...

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.

[arthurbrown]

Bought any RAM lately? Phone? GPU in the last decade?

[ipaddr]

The latest iphone has gone down in price? It's double. I guess the marketing is working.

[xnyan]

"Pens are not cheaper, look at this Montblanc" is not a good faith response.

'84 Motorola DynaTAC - ~$12k AfI (adjusted for inflation)

'89 MicroTAC ~$8k AfI

'96 StarTAC ~$2k AfI

`07 iPhone ~$673 AfI

The current average smartphone sells for around $280. Phones are getting cheaper.

[direwolf20]

Phones, or smartphones?