When did tech get so expensive?

ATech didn’t get expensive, reader. It got really, really, cheap. Ridiculously so. The fact that companies are now raising prices on new gear has to do with a number of factors including inflation, internal compensation for the cost of previous component shortages, and the fact that you are an easily exploited idiot with money to burn. It is your fault and you should feel ashamed.

As far as the cheapness goes, allow Guru to use his frequent friend the ZX Spectrum as an example. This was a computer made to be super-affordable, to bring the power of pixels to the tellies of British families that could not afford the luxury of the Acorn Electron or that disgusting US import, the Commodore 64. It was the cheapest thing out there, on purpose, going as far as to utilise the working halves of otherwise broken RAM chips to save a shilling or three. The inadequate 16K version cost the 1982 equivalent of £438 in today’s King’s Sterling – 48K, which you really needed, was a pricier £595.

One lazy look at Amazon reveals an entirely reasonable laptop for £200, a semi-decent Chromebook for £150, and what is sure to be an utterly awful laptop – equivalent, in its company, to the venerable Speccy – for £80. Putting the march of technology and the depressing reality of globalisation aside, that’s a big difference, even before GaGu mentions that the Motorola Dynatac 800X – the iconic original brick phone – would cost over £8,200 today.

You can pay more for better, and you can pay the luxury tax for big brands, but nobody’s saying you need to. And this was always the case. The C64 cost the equivalent of £1,355. Those that could afford it did, and those that couldn’t consigned their kids to years of playground bullying. Guru understands that iPhone-toting teens do the same to Android owners today – ‘twas ever thus.