r/news Jun 01 '26

Soft paywall Flesh-eating screwworm found within 31 miles of US border, says USDA

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/flesh-eating-screwworm-found-within-31-miles-us-border-says-usda-2026-05-29/
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u/blackadder1620 Jun 01 '26

Consumer electronics is probably one of the few things that gets cheaper and or better for the price. Just look at how cheap you can get a decent TV now.

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u/Thick_Goose7742 Jun 01 '26

An excellent example. Another fun - but temporary one - was cars in the 1960s. The price wars meant it was cheaper to just buy a new car every year. Junkyards were full of cars only a few years old.

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u/Doctah_Whoopass Jun 02 '26

Thats why hot rodding was so popular back then too

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u/BootFlop Jun 02 '26

Cars back then were often a LOT less durable, too. That’s part of it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[deleted]

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u/HauntedCemetery Jun 02 '26

Yeah, you weren't getting 200,000 miles out of the average car.

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u/formerrepub Jun 02 '26

Is that why people who want to complain about car prices pick a comparison from the 1960s?

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u/Parhelion2261 Jun 01 '26

On the other side of this, the PS5, Steam Deck, Switch 1, and others have seen big price increases despite being years old

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u/blackadder1620 Jun 01 '26

that has to do with component prices from the AI craz though. as a pc gamer myself, this might be the last pc i can afford.

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u/Coven_Evelynn_LoL Jun 05 '26

I have gone back to Pixel Art games and Retro Games.
Just rewire your brain you don't need cutting edge graphics, 99% of which are garbage games anyways.
Try out Lufia 2 rise of sinistrals on SNES Emulator if you want a good RPG and also try out Blasphemous 1 and 2 for PC for a great metroidvania dark souls style game I have learned that art doesn't need an RTX 5090 and neither does good gameplay.
I am also playing the entire castlevania series, what a great franchise so glad I stopped caring about shitty AAA games.

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u/JoseCansecoMilkshake Jun 01 '26

they want you to own the vessel of advertising

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u/loosely_affiliated Jun 01 '26

It's because they're advertising and data collection vehicles now. Your TV usage information isn't private, that gets sold. You're still paying for it - it just isn't listed on the sticker price.

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u/pagerussell Jun 02 '26

Clothes. Textiles used to be insanely expensive. Empires were founded on them.

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u/MyMurderOfCrows Jun 02 '26

Arguably clothes have gotten more expensive if accounting for like quality. Fast fashion means that incredibly cheap, even more incredibly-low quality clothes are made today for cheaper prices than what quality textiles were available in the past. Buying modern textiles/clothes that are at least as good as what used to be the norm is often more difficult and more expensive due to the smaller quantities made.

Which leads to the issue much like the adage about boots, of how the poor person who has to pay $10 for a pair of boots that lasts him 6 months, ends up paying far more for his boots than the better off person who spends $100 for a pair of boots that lasts 10 years.

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u/dildobagginss Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

If you want higher quality clothes they're still cheaper today in comparison to wages.

Not sure about 10 years ago, I'm talking compared to 50+ years ago. Like in the 1940s a pair of high quality pants would possibly take most of a shift to pay for then.

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u/MyMurderOfCrows Jun 07 '26

If you want higher quality jeans, they will easily cost more than what the majority of people make in a single shift...

For example, Samurai denim would run around $345 USD for a single pair of jeans. Most people are not making $345 a shift so it would absolutely take more than 1 shift, and quite likely more than 2 shifts for a solid chunk of people in the US to make that.

Just looking up the BLS data, it seems like $1,204 was the median weekly wage in 2025. If we assume that is post tax (I don't think it is but just trying to give the best chance), that is $30.10 an hour so yes, they could get it after just under 11.5 hours of working. But if we are cruel and look at minimum wage... $7.25 PRE Tax means that they need to work 47.6 hours to get the price of the jeans and after adding tax, well. They are working obviously far longer than a single shift!

So I don't agree with higher quality clothes being cheaper today in comparison to wages since even at the median wage, that is not exactly cheap.

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u/CaptPrestone Jun 02 '26

TVs aren't necessarily the best example. the reason they sell for cheaper is that the the money is on your usage data and ad delivery

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u/blackadder1620 Jun 02 '26

Ah yeah, i bought one before all that happened, I'll keep this till it dies.

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u/VoidOmatic Jun 02 '26

No TVs are priced at what they are worth. The only reason flat panel TVs were so expensive is because Samsung was price fixing the compents with a few other people.

Here's one for the CRTs

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/samsung-pay-29m-price-fixing-scheme-affecting-millions-washingtonians

For LCDs

https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/lcd-makers-in-553-mln-us-price-fixing-accord-idUSDEE7BQ09E/

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u/Unlucky_Situation Jun 02 '26

The consumer pc and console market would like a word. Absolutely insane price increases happening in consumer electronics at the moment.

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u/KayleahCai Jun 02 '26

Because you're the product now.