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peaseageeyesterday at 8:54 PM5 repliesview on HN

That's not true. Many technologies get more expensive over time, as labor gets more expensive or as certain skills fall by the wayside, not everything is mass market. Have you tried getting a grandfather clock repaired lately?


Replies

willio58yesterday at 9:35 PM

Repairing grandfather clocks isn't more expensive now because it's gotten any harder; it's because the popularity of grandfather clocks is basically nonexistent compared to anything else to tell time.

esafakyesterday at 9:14 PM

Instead of advancing tenuous examples you could suggest a realistic mechanism by which costs could rise, such as a Chinese advance on Taiwan, effecting TSMC, etc.

simianwordsyesterday at 9:03 PM

"repairing a unique clock" getting costlier doesn't mean technology hasn't gotten cheaper.

check out whether clocks have gotten cheaper in general. the answer is that it has.

there is no economy of scale here in repairing a single clock. its not relevant to bring it up here.

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emtelyesterday at 10:31 PM

Time-keeping is vastly cheaper. People don't want grandfather clocks. They want to tell time. And they can, more accurately, more easily, and much cheaper than their ancestors.

groby_byesterday at 9:26 PM

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.

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