Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today (cite: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com)
But today, if you can finagle the EDU discount, you can get a MacBook Neo for $499 ($600 without) which apparently isn't really compromised in any major way.
Yes, I'm aware how inflation works, you missed my point. Many technology things have effectively gotten cheaper over time, when you account for overall performance/specs/capabilities/etc. The "we don't know how to make a $500 computer that doesn't suck" statement of today would be more like "we don't know how to make a $350 computer that doesn't suck".
> Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today
It should also be noted that technological advances tend to be deflationary in general: regardless of real or nominal dollars, the chips/storage/etc you can buy today were sometimes not even available in the past at any price.
Edit: e.g., see 1991 Radio Shack add:
* https://www.trendingbuffalo.com/life/uncle-steves-buffalo/ev...
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161816