I wondered how the real price of the Pi has changed since launch and looked it up. Apparently the launch price in 2012, $35, is equivalent to $47.95 today. So this is pretty close.
Assuming prices for this type of device rise at the same rate as CPI.
In practice, the inflation rate for most sectors is very different to the CPI average, so these “adjusted for inflation” numbers are pretty meaningless.
The Pi 1 A+ is currently ~£20 including taxes: https://www.rapidonline.com/raspberry-pi-model-a-75-1131?src...
Disposable Income (inflation-adjusted or proportionate to whole income) tends to go up and down with a different pattern to inflation (or housing which makes up most of inflation most of the time) but represents more the difference in cost to you for a consumer good (especially elastic ones). The picture is much less rosy but represents the median person this way, not tech workers.
That's a good point that people often ignore. It's especially relevant when talking about technology, where pricing tends to fall, not rise. Pi feel like they should cost like $20 now considering they make them at way higher numbers than in the past and that the technology isn't anything particularly unique.
You do have the launch Pi feature set available in the Pi Zero which is much less than 20 USD.
Wasn’t there once a 5$ version?
The Zero was $5, the Zero W was $10 and the Zero W 2 is $15.