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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

In 2003, industry best selling and flagship Razr cost $500

In 2018, Apple's flagship iPhone cost ( starts ) $999.

I still don't know what to make of those "numbers". A lot fo jobs outside of Tech Sector had lower salary now in real terms than in 2003, and housing price are many times of those in 2003.

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I'm not sure the comparison is that significant. We tend to omit two aspects when we deride price changes:

One is just inflation. No need to explain that. In 15 years at 3% annual inflation rates, the $500 becomes $780.

Second is that the product has changed, massively. The better comparison is to a flagship phone-only, which is $30. Or to compare the iPhone to a range of products, e.g. a phone, but also a television, a videocamera, photocamera, pocket-microphone, GPS tracker, mp3 player, navigation system, fitness tracker, and some kind of pocket computer that lets you browse the internet, read news, take notes etc. It's quite remarkably different from a phone, and we sort of have to thank Apple for this 'issue' in them calling it the iPhone and getting smartphones as a permanent product category. When really it's a computer first, phone second. Try selling an iPhone that can't do anything but make calls, then try selling an iPhone that has its call function disabled, the latter would outsell the former by a large margin.

Inflation does not apply usually to electronics.

A 32" inch flat panel TV costed in 2003 twice or triple what it costs today.

In 2003/2004 a Sony Ericsson P800 or P900 (among the first products that can be called "smartphone") costed more or less the same as an iPhone costs today.

Of course it applies, you're just describing the outcome of an even stronger effect counteracting inflation.

Inflation simply means an inflation of the money supply. If you give everyone 1 trillion dollars tomorrow, hypothetically speaking, prices of all electronics would surely go up.

Similarly, if there was no technological advancement in the past 20 years, prices of flatscreen TV's would also have gone up in nominal terms due to an increasing money supply.

Instead, technology moved much faster to lower production costs than an increase in the money supply increased nominal prices. Doesn't mean there was no inflation or that it magically didn't apply.

As for your example of a Sony Ericsson, did you miss half of my post where I explain it's an apples/oranges comparison, or that better smartphones than the P800 sell for $100 (like the Moto G5, infinitely more value than the P800).

Yeah, my P910i was pretty damn expensive back in the day. It showed the potential of smartphones, but never really materialized. I did have a 3rd party GPS app with external bluetooth GPS dongle - which worked pretty well, but the resistive touch-screen, memory limits, generic slowness, no WiFi, and lack of software updates and maintenance made it a "too soon" device.

That is just the absolute price. You still have the price increase of the inflation but it is off set by the decline in price form the production efficiency.

So you absolutely have to take in inflation calculations to any comparison.

Yep, my point was that - when it comes to electronics - the combination of fairly low inflation with economies due to mass production, competition, diffusion, efficiency or what not, results in a substantial deflation, i.e. a "same" or "comparable" electronic device tends after a few years to cost less (in absolute price).

The iPhone is an exception as the good Apple guys managed - one way or the other - to keep the price constant or nearly constant.

Of course it remains clear that - say - US$ 1,000 15 years ago were "more" than US$ 1,000 today.

I punched those numbers into the bank of England's inflation calculator and half that difference can be explained by inflation alone

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...

In 2003, for most people, the flagship Razr cost £99, or nothing. You were paying £20 or £30 a month for mobile service in a contract that gave you a new phone every 12 months. No benefit or discount for not taking an upgrade when it was available.

And 80% of the monthly fee was for the phone, not the service. Plans without a bundled phone are much cheaper.

> Plans without a bundled phone are much cheaper.

And were not widely available at the time...

Ok, but the new iPhone has a huge screen, great browser, email, 64gb ram, > a million apps, 40x the radio bands, 30x the resolution, 3x the battery, 100x the speed, video, and more.

Not only that, but it has replaced other devices. The modern flagship cell phone is a great value when you realized it replaces the digital P&S camera, the video recorder, the music player, and for some uses the computer.

Some more (sometimes incompletely): GPS devices, scanners, portable video players, E-readers, paper books, magazines, and newspapers, credit cards, voice recorders, business cards, portable video game systems.

Of course, a brand new flagship isn't necessary to perform all these functions. The 2016 model Sony I bought used for $200 in 2017 is capable of doing all these things. It even has removable storage, a headphone jack, and a dedicated camera button (all lacking on most flagships). Flagships are luxury items or fashion accessories, and they're still a good value relative to other luxury items.

The only reason I said flagships is that it took awhile for the cameras (both still and video) to really replicate what could be had as a stand alone.

but basic version of XS does not even have 1080p :(

In 1996 Motorola's StarTAC phone cost $1,000. It was the world's smallest commercially available cellphone, and was the first ever clamshell/flip mobile phone. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_StarTAC

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