I was just thinking in the back of my head about how cheap LEDs have made types of lighting that would’ve cost way too much (both to install, and in electricity usage) no longer stupidly expensive.
For example, I noticed on Amazon some cheap furniture that has LEDs/power outlets sort of integrated right into them. Looks pretty cyberpunk-ish to my eyes. And I know years ago that sort of thing would’ve been marked up to high heavens.
Fancy lighting in general has changed drastically in price/design.
So…what are some things, due to changes in demand or changes in tech or changes in anything…that would’ve been really expensive back in the day, but which no longer seem to be, making them more frugal than they used to be?
FYI the cheaper LEDs and usb power outlets are all disposable quality. Prices on the high quality stuff are coming down because of the downward force of cheap shit, but the really cheap shit is cheap because it’s shit.
That not really true, it’s cheap because manufacturing is a solved problem and incredibly easy to exceed the requirements.
It’s cheaper for those reasons.
Cheap shit on Temu, Amazon, and AliExpress is cheap because it’s shit.
It’s often things made with exactly the same machines and materials as all the others on the market, that’s what a solved problem is.
You can spend $80 for something in a nice box where the distributor is run by people who own yachts or an identical thing straight from the factory.
Phillips bulbs are like 10x an LED bulb from Walmart but I’ve gone through 10x the bulbs and my Phillips are still trucking.
On a recent trip to Walmart (I live in a rural area so limited retail options) I noticed they now have 3 different tiers of LEDs. 3 year, 5 year and 10 year. So they really have this whole lifespan thing for the LEDs down to a science
Typically things they can they can tack subscription fees onto
Every god damn fitness app for VR… Why the hell do I need to pay a subscription fee just to keep better track of how much I swung my controllers or head around or set higher goals than the built-in system?
I’ve never thought about VR for fitness. I have a VR that I never use. Any suggestions on an app that isn’t expensive? I’m fat and trying to be not fat. Lol
The Quest has its own built in app called “Move” that works okay. It will track how much you’ve moved in VR and gives you caloric goals; but the highest goal you can set is 120 Calories for 30 minutes 3 days a week. All the other programs I have seen are subscription based and come with live trainers and customer support, which is what they are really trying to sell, over any kind of useful tool which could be done without a subscription but still require the subscription to use.
At least on the actual stores. I am finding more things on GitHub to do what I actually want to do with the headset than on any official channels, but I haven’t gone out of my way specifically for fitness stuff.
TVs. I once paid ~$300 for a 32" CRTV. Now I can get a 55" flat screen for under $100. It’s weird.
I remember paying 5DM for a single blue LED. Which would be about 6 or 7 Euro adjusted for inflation.
I once paid a good months income for 16MB of RAM for my computer. Which put me into the category “the private home computer that has more RAM than all the companies’ servers together”.
I once paid several hundred DM for 16 KB of RAM for my ZX81. Now get off my lawn, damn kids!
Not too terribly long ago, clothing was super expensive. Like, make a dress from burlap or old feed sacks instead of buying something expensive. Some companies that sold feed and seed would print floral patterns on the sacks because they knew customers would turn the old sacks into clothing for their children.