Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Everyone wants cheaper because wages have fell so far behind inflation that people struggle to afford even what they used to, let alone what their parents used to afford. Quality for most consumer things has just obviously been going down. It's why people are so still so excited about electronics and video games, because those are the few things that actually get better without becoming more expensive.
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Wages haven't fallen behind inflation. From 1981 to 2024, median real hourly wages in Canada grew by 20%, with the vast majority of this growth occurring after 2003.
People want cheap things because they want cheap things. It has nothing to do with what things cost their parents. A great many things are much cheaper and/or better today than 40 years ago.
Clothing - Cheap kids jeans were $20 in 1980. They're $20 today. T-shirts were $10-15 in the 80s. They're still $10-15. Adjusted for inflation, they're much cheaper. Middle-class families used to wear hand-me-downs and patch clothes. Now there's no point - just grab something from Winners or Old Navy.
Appliances - Look up the price of a microwave, TV, coffee maker, or dryer in the 80s. They're eye-watering in today's dollars.
Furniture - There's a reason great-aunts had plastic covers on their sofas - before IKEA a new sofa cost a fortune and people expected them to last 30 years.
Music - In the early 90s, a CD cost $20, or $45 in today's money. That same $45 today will get you a three-month family subscription to Spotify, where four people will have unlimited access to the great majority of recorded music.
News/information - This is a site for hardcore hockey fans, I expect the great majority of people here spend $0 a year on newspapers or their online equivalent.
Food - In 1969, food accounted for 19 per cent of household spending in Canada. Today, that figure is 11 per cent. And the variety available in a typical grocery store is far, far greater - the average grocery store today stocks 5x as many different items as a store in the 80s. The gap in restaurants is even wider - who would exchange the options in Calgary today for the options in 1987, when Chi-Chi's was an exotic night out?
Travel - In 1987, a transatlantic flight in the off-season cost over $1000 ($2,500+ in today's dollars). There's a reason global tourism has increased five-fold since then - the world has gotten richer and air travel has gotten much cheaper. Air travel is a good case study in why this is driven by consumer preference, and not greedy capitalists. Everyone complains about how ####ty air travel has become, but most everyone will also choose the cheapest flight from A to B, and forego a checked bag to save $25. With relentless consumer demand for the lowest price, prices have gotten far cheaper, while airline prot margins remain razor-thin. We collectively chose cheaper but worse.
Streaming - It wasn't long ago that between cable subscriptions, video rentals, and buying DVDs, a typical middle-class family spent almost $200 a month on video entertainment. Today, people balk at paying $18 a month for Netflix. Even if you had subscriptions to five streaming services, the average family today is spending less on video entertainment than they were 25 years ago, and for vastly more content. Does anyone acknowledge or appreciate this? Of course not. Negativity bias is a hell of a drug.
I know comfortably upper-middle-class people who pirate 100 per cent of their digital entertainment - music, streaming, audiobooks - everything. People feel entitled to cheap or free, regardless of how affluent they are or what their parents could buy.
That's why streamers and other entertainment platforms will happily embrace AI. Not because the owners of those platforms are rolling in cash (most streaming companies spend more on content than they earn in revenues, and movie studios are struggling to survive). They'll embrace AI because consumers have shown that they'll chase the lowest price. And always have.
