Did you ever look at the price of something decades ago and daydream about all that you could have afforded back then? There’s a pin that deflates that dream, and it’s called inflation. HP’s research team calculated how much iconic technology would cost in today’s dollars.
For one, TVs have become relatively inexpensive, but the price of $395 for the first all-electronic television also seems pretty reasonable. That is, until you find out that if the 1938 set was on sale today, that price would be equivalent to $7,420.31. If you wanted to watch your favorite movies on it, you could wait for 1977, when the RCA VBT200 VCR came out for $1,300. Just have $5,672.82 ready, because that’s how much it’s going to cost you now.
Maybe you want to call a friend to borrow some cash. Just pick up your Motorola Dynatac 8000X, the first mobile phone for the masses, for $4,000. Oh, sorry: That’s what it cost in 1984—now it would ring up at about $10,217.05.
You can always rifle through your junk drawer and see what you have to sell, like your first iPod that cost you $399 in 2001; it would come to $593.74 today. And that BlackBerry 6210 that was so revolutionary in 2003, which you paid $299.99 for? It would cost you $432.57 today. Though actually, compared to what phones cost now, that seems like a bargain.
