I did hear an interesting quote from someone techy that said "If you punch a whole in a plasterboard wall, it is now cheaper to buy a TV to cover the hole than get someone to repair the plasterboard."
> I did hear an interesting quote from someone techy that said "If you punch a whole in a plasterboard wall, it is now cheaper to buy a TV to cover the hole than get someone to repair the plasterboard."
Isn't that Baumol's cost disease (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect), not regulation? As manufactured goods get cheaper, labor gets relatively expensive. The expensive part of patching a hole in a wall is not the materials, it's having a guy come and do that work. There's no opportunity for automation or economies of scale with having a guy come over to your house to deal with your specific situation, but there are tons of those in a factory.
An even cheaper way of covering the hole than a TV is to hang up a rough piece of drywall without competent installation.
Also, I'd be wary of quotes from "someone techy," tech people can be pretty shallow and stupid, and it's pretty obvious that whoever was said that quote was going for shock/cleverness and sacrificed truth and understanding.
and it's pretty obvious that whoever was said that quote was going for shock/cleverness and sacrificed truth and understanding
But ... Andreessen has elsewhere claimed it's due to regulation: https://pmarca.substack.com/p/why-ai-wont-cause-unemployment
But ... more recently his firm has explained they know what Baumol's cost disease is: https://a16z.com/why-ac-is-cheap-but-ac-repair-is-a-luxury/
He does have his head up his ass, so I wouldn't be surprised [1]. However, he doesn't really say anything close enough in either of the articles you linked.
[1] FFS, he really implies day care is expensive because regulation is preventing "technology [from] whipping through" the sector like it has in TV manufacturing. I don't want to live in his nightmare fantasy.
But in the spirit of deregulation and techno-utopianism, here's an idea to use technology to slash day care prices that's held back by evil government regulation: lock kids in padded rooms while their parents work. Maybe stick a TV on the wall playing Cocomelon. It requires no labor for supervision, and the kids can't get hurt because the room is padded. That's a "technological innovation" that will "push down prices while increasing quality," for certain definitions of "quality."
However, he doesn't really say anything close enough in either of the articles you linked.
Businesses always claim “regulation makes prices higher” but deregulation has not resulted in cheaper goods over time in aggregate. Consumer electronics seem to be a pricing exception and I think it’s largely automation and outsourced production as the regulations haven’t changed substantially in some time.
This is a pretty straightforward example of the Baumol effect, where _anything_ bespoke (not manufactured) requiring a human is simply going to cost more. The materials for patching drywall/plaster are tiny, it's the cost of the person that is expensive because overall cost of living is rising. The cost of outsourced labor (which you can leverage when making a TV, but can't for local labor) also probably plays a role.
In fact, I bet you could find someone to fix the drywall/plaster much cheaper than the cost of a TV. You just won't like the quality of the work.
letting evil corps get away with anything leads to them jacking up prices anyways -- who would have guessed?
The most critical determinant of the cost of things is "do you absolutely have to do this in a Western country by people who are legally entitled to work there, and even worse, in or near a major city?"
I don't have references, but I suspect that the people working in the TV factory do not find that the TVs are cheaper than finding a local plasterer. The TVs can be easily imported to the West from somewhere cheaper. The labour cannot, and there's an entire regulatory infrastructure dedicated to keeping such labour expensive. So you see price rises in all the labour-intensive non-exportable industries; trades, healthcare, education, law enforcement, hospitality, and so on. While anything that can be put on a boat gets comparably cheaper.
(this is my variant on the Baumol Cost Disease argument, which is in the graph in the article already)
but I suspect that the people working in the TV factory do not find that the TVs are cheaper than finding a local plasterer
I suspect the new one would be cheaper.
Automation and economies of scale matter, not just labour costs.
I did hear an interesting quote from someone techy
But what’s cause and what’s effect?
Things that get cheaper over time don’t need price regulation to ensure that people who need them can afford to buy them, for example.
Quicker, also.
I don't care how cheap TVs are if I have to buy a new one every 1 or 2 years.
Is that a problem? I've probably purchased 7 TVs over the decades and only had one fail (replaced under warranty).
Although in reality, I'd just go in my basement and get the leftover supplies ...
Alternatively, I could just buy a blank electrical cover (or a picture) and put it on the wall.
This is one of the central theories behind Kartik Gada's ATOM concept. He may come across as a bit of crank to some, but he has some interesting ideas.