Long ago, the gameshow 'Wheel of Fortune' made players spend the money they won on selection of prizes instead of getting cash. Watching an old episode recently, I put the price of the refrigerator into an inflation calculator and was astonished by just how expensive it was, relatively speaking, back then. No doubt that was the MSRP and could be purchased for less at Sears, but it still was a shock to see how much more expensive such goods were back then. Ditto for exercise equipment. We've become so accustomed to even large appliances being relatively inexpensive that we tolerate them being mostly disposable instead of repairable.