I was just thinking in the back of my head about how cheap LEDs have made types of lighting that would’ve cost way too much (both to install, and in electricity usage) no longer stupidly expensive.

For example, I noticed on Amazon some cheap furniture that has LEDs/power outlets sort of integrated right into them. Looks pretty cyberpunk-ish to my eyes. And I know years ago that sort of thing would’ve been marked up to high heavens.

Fancy lighting in general has changed drastically in price/design.

So…what are some things, due to changes in demand or changes in tech or changes in anything…that would’ve been really expensive back in the day, but which no longer seem to be, making them more frugal than they used to be?

  • Yrt@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    If it’s okay to go waaaaay back: salt. It’s always mind-blowing to me that people all over europe during the medieval age or even before that couldn’t season anything with salt cause it often was as expensive as gold itself. If I imagine those huge amounts of salt if you wanna pickle some meat or fish. Today salt costs nearly nothing, nearly everybody can afford it and it’s so basic that some even don’t consider it “seasoning” at all.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I remember paying 5DM for a single blue LED. Which would be about 6 or 7 Euro adjusted for inflation.

    I once paid a good months income for 16MB of RAM for my computer. Which put me into the category “the private home computer that has more RAM than all the companies’ servers together”.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        I skirted the ZX81. I had a self-built computer and a TI99A before and a C64 after that.