iPod 5 Years Later
On October 23, 2001, Apple announced in this press release its introduction of the ipod for $400 retail, holding 1,000 songs on a 5 GB hard drive, that could only be used with a Mac. Steve Jobs said at the time, “With the iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.”Five years later, for less money ($332 at BestBuy), and for use on a Mac OR PC, you can get an 80 GB iPod that holds 20,000 songs and plays movies! A 4GB iPod comparable to the original iPod holding 1,000 songs now sells for $189 at BestBuy.
Things get better and better and cheaper all time time, remember when VCRs cost $1200? Probably not, if you were born after 1975 or so.
See CafeHayek for more on this: how does BLS handle this significant price decrease and significant quality improvement?
3 Comments:
I bought my first VCR in 1985 for $800, and my last VCR last year for $80. The 1985 VCR still works great, but the one I bought last year does not. I wonder if that's just a coincidence.
For $80 today, you can get combination VCR/DVD player that includes a JPEG-CD viewer to view digital photos and create slideshows on your TV screen, etc. Compared to the original VCRs for $1200, the new VCR/DVDs for $80 are "almost free," and they have dozens of more features, and they are generally more dependable and reliable. For example, a combination VCR/DVD would not have been available at ANY price in 1980s. Notice also that electronic equipment is now so cheap that electronic repair services have almost disappeared. Your $80 DVD/VCR that you just bought quits working after 5 years? Just throw it out and buy a new one, it will probably be only $50 by then.
I already threw it away.
The $800 I spent in 1985, is $1508 in 2006 dollars. Just think of all the electronic goodies I could buy with that much money!
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