The Shrinking Middle Class in America

[Jon Miller]

I pose this question to you, Jon: leaving aside the issue of whether older computers (especially laptops!) really were more durable/reliable [my experience being very much to the contrary], if I'm going to replace a computer in 2 years, does it matter whether it would last 3 or 5? Does that affect the value in any way?

I was pointing out that the durability loss probably is the result of economics, to make things cheaper (which is what people want).

I have complained about my laptops not lasting as long, and my uncle said that he observed that if he bought the more expensive business line that they lasted longer.

Durability losses do sometimes increase profitability:

http://www.jonathanpeterson.info/resources/Textbook.pdf

JM

[Jon Miller]

It affects resale value I hope you're not the type to just throw out old computers. If so, when you're buying a new computer, can I come by and take the old one off your hands?

I do throw out old computers, after keeping them for 10 years.

It isn't worth the hassle for me to get the 50-100$ that I would get by selling them.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

It affects resale value I hope you're not the type to just throw out old computers. If so, when you're buying a new computer, can I come by and take the old one off your hands?

Yeah, I know, but the influence of resale value on total value is generally going to be inversely related to the timescale of quality improvements, and computers have pretty much the fastest rate of quality increase of any consumer good.

edit: also, what JM said, there are significant transaction costs

That's why it's especially bizarre that nye is actually contesting the idea that computers get better over time.

[Kuciwalker]

You are right on the money.

Consumers respond to price.

In the drive for ever lower prices, things like duarability in mainboards, power supplies, and enclosures give way. Intel gets their cash, as consumers pay heed to CPU GHz, amount of RAM, and hard drive size.

You don't get to invoke the market in one breath and then complain about companies reducing the buying power of your dollar in the other!

Under your own assumptions, if goods are becoming less durable it's because people think it's a worthwhile tradeoff, and so we are actually better off!

[Jon Miller]

Increasing profitability is not always done in the customers interest.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Oh man, gepuppy showed up and I thought "yay, I get to have the same argument and once again prevail through the relentless logic and obvious truth of my position" and then nye shows up and challenges me on AN EVEN MORE OBVIOUS CLAIM!

Seriously, you can sort of have a legit debate about the durability thing [in particular, whether consumers are actually realizing net gains from the price-durability tradeoff that has been made for some goods [edit: this is the same thing Jon just said]; note that you have to assume some pretty massive monopolies and/or really powerful systematic irrationalities on the part of consumers to do this] but you really can't argue that computers are getting worse. The computer industry really is the fastest-moving one in existance, and if computers were the only things we bought we'd be facing deflation rates comparable to Zimbabwe's inflation rates.

[Kuciwalker]

I routinely work with datasets that would barely even fit on a 10-year-old hard hard drive. God, that would suck.

[notyoueither]

That's just depressing, since you know basically nothing about it.

Thought experiment: if computers today are really no better than the computers from 10 years ago... why aren't we just still making the 10-year-old computers?

Other thought experiment: have you

Have I???

Lived in the vacuum that is the space between your ears?

No. Can't say I have.

The reason they don't keep making yesterday's computers is due to Intel marketing and consumer pressure. If you know much about these things I suppose you would not ask such stupid questions.

Intel spends a good deal on marketing to make sure that your parents are looking for the right thing when they go to Best Buy to purchase your latest gift. They also pay attention to the amount of RAM, perhaps thinking that will give them a better chance at grand children. If they only knew...

The short answer is that you have less than zero idea about what goes into making and selling computers. Quality in materials does not count. The latest Intel gizmo and the amount of giga-hydro-fizzles does. This results in dramatically shortened life for the computers produced today over what was porduced in the past.

To put it into terms that even a ponce like you might understand, even if we were still using the same CPUs, RAM, and hard drives as ten years ago, and the making of them would have improved, the machines sold for less today would last a considerable amount of time less than before. Like warrantees are being cut to less than one year in some cases. That is how much faith the makers have in their own products.

But, of course, you will point to the latest CPU as a qualitative improvment, and it is. The part of the machine going to Intel has not decreased in value. They know very well how to retain their share. It makes the cuts to the rest of the machine all the more brutal to allow your parents to buy it for you for $100 less than last year, and $500 less than 10 years ago.

And no, moron, jeans do not have a mph rating. They have a wearingnessness rating. ie, how long they hold up doing the job they were made to do, that is holding my gonads in when I go out into polite or working company. Jeans today last a fraction of the time they did in 1980.

Jeans have plenty of quality metrics besides "how long they take to wear out". For instance, comfort, and not being bright pink.

Pro tip, to save us another round of you not being able to read: I'm not actually claiming that older jeans were less comfortable, or were unpleasant colors!

But you're still a moron who has very little idea of what lends to the term quality when it comes to consumer goods.

Here's a two-by-four to go with the clue, you ****ing incredibly dense specimen of a vertibrate, the amount of time a pair of jeans lasts when worn is the most critical factor in speaking of their quality.

The fact that you like pink jeans is none of my business. The fact that you accept that your pink jeans will be crap that will not last longer than it takes Asher to strip them off you makes you a moron of the highest order.

Not being pink has to do with quality? What the **** planet are you residing on? When aliens are looking down and seeing if we have progressed beyond the intelligence of your run of the mill garden slug, you will be letting down the side!

And by the way, ****trumpet, the car of 1970 is perfectly capable of doing highway speeds today. Yes, they've been improved for safety and milage, but they are no faster at getting from point a to point b than in days gone by. In fact, you could do a lot of things to those cars that you simply cannot do to those today. Some say that is a loss.

Holy ****, you can't read!

Did I claim that 1970s cars could only go 20 miles per hour?

/goes back to check

Nope!

Did it occur to you that I was ESTABLISHING THE POSSIBILITY OF OTHER QUALITY METRICS BESIDES DURABILITY?

And did it occur to you that you JUST ADMITTED THAT THERE ARE OTHER QUALITY METRICS BESIDES DURABILITY?

Then why did you just claim that QUALITY = DURABILITY?

I CLAIMED THAT DURABILITY EQUALS QUALITY FOR THINGS THAT CONSUMERS EXPECT TO BE DURABLE...

YOU INSUFFERABLE PONCE!

[Al B. Sure!]

If consumers were regularly willing to make a significant trade-off in durability/quality for cheapness... we'd all be driving Yugo's.

I routinely work with datasets that would barely even fit on a 10-year-old hard hard drive. God, that would suck.

I think you're exaggerating a bit. I'm assuming Access or Excel files. I can't imagine them running into the GB's.

[Kuciwalker]

I think you're exaggerating a bit. I'm assuming Access or Excel files. I can't imagine them running into the GB's.

Dude, I have several multi-GB databases on my laptop right now (health insurance claims data). When we need to run Access queries on them we just split the files (Access has a 2GB limit) and link the tables rather than import.

[notyoueither]

You don't get to invoke the market in one breath and then complain about companies reducing the buying power of your dollar in the other!

Under your own assumptions, if goods are becoming less durable it's because people think it's a worthwhile tradeoff, and so we are actually better off!

There's a term for you. I am dredging it up from memory. It is something Voltaire wrote. Something about the best of all possible worlds.

No matter what would happen, even if the king gave him dog **** to eat, this **** would hold forth about it being the best of all possible worlds.

You remind me a great deal of that moron.

Dr. Pangloss! You are so christened.

[Kuciwalker]

The reason they don't keep making yesterday's computers is due to Intel marketing and consumer pressure. If you know much about these things I suppose you would not ask such stupid questions.

Intel spends a good deal on marketing to make sure that your parents are looking for the right thing when they go to Best Buy to purchase your latest gift. They also pay attention to the amount of RAM, perhaps thinking that will give them a better chance at grand children. If they only knew...

Wait, by "consumer pressure" do you mean "people prefer the new computers to the old computers"? Why, exactly, do people prefer the new computers if they aren't higher quality? Is it all because of Intel's nefarious marketing campaign? They've deceived the entire computer-purchasing public into thinking that computers are getting better over time, except for you, the lone visionary who realized that they aren't?

Oh man, I didn't realize that I could have gotten just as much value out of a 10-year-old desktop as my current one.

The short answer is that you have less than zero idea about what goes into making and selling computers.

nye, I am not only an avid and informed consumer of computer hardware, but also a professional software devleoper with a degree in computer science from one of the foremost institutions in the world in that field. I've also worked for the number-4 worldwide semiconductor manufacturer. I know what I'm talking about.

The short answer is that you have less than zero idea about what goes into making and selling computers. Quality in materials does not count. The latest Intel gizmo and the amount of giga-hydro-fizzles does. This results in dramatically shortened life for the computers produced today over what was porduced in the past.

To put it into terms that even a ponce like you might understand, even if we were still using the same CPUs, RAM, and hard drives as ten years ago, and the making of them would have improved, the machines sold for less today would last a considerable amount of time less than before. Like warrantees are being cut to less than one year in some cases. That is how much faith the makers have in their own products.

But, of course, you will point to the latest CPU as a qualitative improvment, and it is. The part of the machine going to Intel has not decreased in value. They know very well how to retain their share. It makes the cuts to the rest of the machine all the more brutal to allow your parents to buy it for you for $100 less than last year, and $500 less than 10 years ago.

So, basically, your data-less argument that computers are less reliable now than in the past 1) doesn't address the issue of whether the loss of reliability occurs substantially within the upgrade window and 2) explicitly acknowledges that this tradeoff is PREFERRED BY CONSUMERS. You also miss the point that computers today are so much better along the performance axis than a 10yo computer that even if they were three times as expensive or had to be replaced three times as often, it would be easily worth the money.

[Kuciwalker]

There's a term for you. I am dredging it up from memory. It is something Voltaire wrote. Something about the best of all possible worlds.

No matter what would happen, even if the king gave him dog **** to eat, this **** would hold forth about it being the best of all possible worlds.

You remind me a great deal of that moron.

Dr. Pangloss! You are so christened.

nye, YOU ARE THE ONE INVOKING THAT HYPOTHESIS. I have never invoked market efficiency in this thread, not once. I observed that you were invoking market efficiency in the same breath that you were complaining about systematic market failure!

[Kuciwalker]

nye makes an argument, I point out that his argument makes some strong assumptions that invalidate his point, and then he calls me an idiot for making those assumptions

[Kuciwalker]

This is serious zakudl-level idiocy. I love it!