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?
I love the fact you used LEDs as part of your post, because they themselves perfectly fit the topic of the post. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, LEDs were almost prohibitively expensive. I can remember consumer LEDs in like '92 being over $2 a piece, which is a lot if you compare to today when you can get programmable RGB LEDs for less than a nickle a piece.
I mean sure if you are talking leds but if your talking light bulbs in general then they are way more expensive than back in the day. Anything before mass production is more expensive than after but if you mean something that was basically mass produced but got cheaper then I think that has happended sometimes when a better process comes along. Gas is pretty cheap now relative to inflation.
An individual bulb is somewhat more expensive, yes, but I’ve noticed I no longer half-expect the typical popping sound of an incandescent bulb going dead randomly when I turn on a light because it’s been so long since I’ve had a bulb truly burn out on me. Used to be a few-times-a-year thing, now it’s more like once every 5+ years.
Wikipedia functionally ended the market for encyclopedias. When I was a kid I would go to the library and read an encyclopedia just to see what random knowledge was in there. Traveling salesman would sell encyclopedias door to door and they were hugely expensive. Then Encarta came along and it was mind blowing you could have all that information on some CDs. Then Wikipedia killed all of them and did it for free.
When computers began to take hold in middle class homes, one of the biggest gold rushes was to be the encyclopedia of choice on the computer, since consumers saw encyclopedia software as an obvious (and maybe best!) use case for a computer.
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.
TVs. I once paid ~$300 for a 32" CRTV. Now I can get a 55" flat screen for under $100. It’s weird.