One needs to think beyond the moment.
About 50 years ago color TVs were not affordable for many families. Now just about everyone can afford a color TV. Most new technology initially falls outside the affordability of the masses.
This is because it takes research and investment to arrive at a new piece of technology. Thus these costs have to be recovered to allow further research and investment to then refine the technology and improve its performance.
This in turn then allows lower costs to be achieved by offering more performance for the dollar to the consumer which helps stimulate consumer demand and hence volume production and hence overall profitability and hence profit and economies of scale etc... and this feeds back into the lower cost loop.
Once a plant is producing widgets at full capacity, its operating most cost efficiently. Now say in 5 years time a new more efficient widget maker comes along and the first widget maker is still at full capacity. This could form the justification to buy the second widget maker, produce widgets at lower cost and hence offer consumers cheaper widgets, which by the way have also been refined in their technology and operational efficiency. etc... etc.. and the cycle just keeps going where widget performance evolves as does the widget making equipment. And the beat goes on
Most PCs today, would have cost a fortune 50 years ago and taken up whole rooms and used up lots of power. Even 5 years ago if you were able to buy a PC offering the performance and memory capacity of today's PCs, they would have been out of the cost range of most people.
It can take several years for technology to evolve, improve in performance and hence sales and volume of production to rise, to help facilitate lower costs both to the manufacturers and then consumers.
Just because something seems expensive today, does not mean it will be as expensive in several years time. Usually the opposite occurs with price falling over time for a given level of technology. If the idea is good offering real community benefits, costs will generally fall over time, so long as the supply of raw materials and labour remain at a constant rate relative to consumer demand.
Give it time lad, give it time.
Linear Mode
