Episode 146 - The (actual) Cost of Today's Tech

Everyone has their guilty pleasure. An objectively awful TV show that you just happen to love. That candy bar that has your stomach turning an hour later but it doesn’t matter because it transports you back in time. Me? Mine is eggs.  Yep, you heard me right, and I no I don’t mean some secret code word for an obscure, unheard of super computer or gaming platform. I literally mean… the breakfast food. Scrambled specifically. No matter what came at me that day, what has be stressed out or down in the dumps, the act of making and enjoying (probably too many) scrambled eggs made “only the way I make them” is pure joy to me. So, with that far-too-detailed peek into my psyche… you can only imagine the impact on my personal and mental wellbeing each time eggs became somehow more expensive than the literal truck that delivered them. Bird flus, infrastructure meltdowns… the cost of the freaking cartons. You name it, and it’s screwed with the cost of my most beloved snack a time-or-ten in the last few years.  So where the heck am I going with this? Well, see pricing is kind of a weird thing, yes? When the cost of a dozen eggs regularly crested 5, 6 dollars or more… well you would have thought the world was coming to an end. That is until I compared it to… well… every freaking other thing in the world that seemed to be having the same or similar issue. Eggs weren’t expensive. Everything was.  Shift quickly over to tech and well, that’s basically the only story in town right now. Six-year-old game consoles? Hundreds more than their launch price. Want a high-performance laptop? Hope you have equity in your house to tap. Simply want to upgrade an existing piece of tech you already own? Be prepared for 400% increases from just 12 months ago.  Seems apocalyptic, right? Feels that way for sure… but then, much like with my favorite snack, we have to look at some perspective. Buckle up, because this one’s going all the way back to 1984 to answer the question… how expensive has our tech really gotten?  Check please…