After the recent run-up, where are prices on a per-performance basis? Back to 2019?
Computers were incredibly more expensive when I was growing up. People bought them anyway.
Is a computer that lasts 5-8 really productive years (and is still serviceable for another 5-7) and costs $1500 really a deal-breaker just because it was $1000 and on sale for $850 a year ago? Even if it doubled again, it still doesn’t price normal people out, IMO.
> Is a computer that lasts 5-8 really productive years (and is still serviceable for another 5-7) and costs $1500 really a deal-breaker just because it was $1000 and on sale for $850 a year ago? Even if it doubled again, it still doesn’t price normal people out, IMO.
Maybe it's different in the US. In Canada, the median income for 25-54 years old was just under $60k / year in 2024. When you're talking about a $3k USD computer, it's pushing 10% or more of the median after tax income. My gut reaction to that is that most people don't even end up with that much disposable income in total, let alone for a single purchase.
HN is skewed with people way at the top end of income earners, especially on a global scale. Imagine getting $30k / year to spend on everything you need and then consider how much $3k on a computer is.
My dad had to take a loan to buy our first computer. Who wants that? It's dumbfounding to see the number of people cheering on backwards progress where we end up where we were 3+ decades ago.
> When you're talking about a $3k USD computer, it's pushing 10% or more of the median after tax income.
If it lasts for 10 years, it's more like 1% of the after tax income of a median individual earner over that period.
I think a computer is clearly valuable enough that people will entirely rationally spend 1% of their income on it if that's what it costs. (I'm not "cheering it on"; I'm just observing and predicting that lots of normal people will still buy computers.)
Computers really aren't that valuable to the average person who already has a smart phone. For everyone else, many probably have a work issued computer, and don't need one at home. The market for high end home hardware is really only gamers and tech workers, and gamers will fall back to closed hardware fast if price/perf pushed them to do it. A big reason PC gaming thrived 2010-2020 was PCs were better on a price/perf basis.
I think your idea of what "normal people" can afford is a bit off. Normal people aren't buying $1500 computers. And they definitely aren't buying $3000 computers.
An 4K Apple ][ cost the equivalent of around $7K when released. A C64 cost the equivalent of around $2K when released. Both were fairly popular and vastly less useful than a computer today.
If the cheapest useful computer ends up costing $3K, it will still be purchased and will still be worth it at around $1/day of useful life.
The C64 sold "between 12.5 and 17 million units" in its lifetime [0], vs. worldwide PC shipments of "71.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025." (emphasis mine) [1] It's truly an apples (hehe) to oranges comparison, and in my opinion it only reinforces the point that "normal people" will no longer be able to purchase computers, just like the C64 was not a mainstream product.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160306232450/http://www.pageta... [1] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-1-20...
> "normal people" will no longer be able to purchase computers,
Starbucks' revenue was almost $10B in the last quarter. Most people can clearly afford $1/day for something as useful as a computer.
That seems like a false equivalence to me, even if we ignore the fact that only 21% of that revenue came from non-US countries. There are enormous chunks of the world where the local equivalent of $1500 is a life-changing amount of money.
How do you not understand the difference between spending $5 once or twice a week and having to cough up $3k all at once.. or paying 20-30% interest if they can't afford to pay that.
It's extremely obvious from your flippant attitude that you are doing quite well financially and are completely out of touch with the financial realities of the vast majority of people. Congratulations on your financial success, but maybe lay off on thinking that everyone else can afford the luxuries that you can.
"Normal people" were not purchasing Apple II or C64 computers in the 70s and 80s.
What you're showing me is that you are completely out of touch with the financial realities the vast majority of people face.
There is a reason that the Macbook Neo has been a smashing success.
If the cheapest useful computer ends up costing $3k, then most people will simply no longer own a computer whenever their current computer dies unless their livelihood depends upon it, which for most people it does not.
It was nice, in the 90s and 00s when computing hardware's cost was just falling so rapidly. I think it was like what, 1.5x "stuff" each year? Like RAM going 1.5x bigger every 12 months, CPU frequencies increased by that much. Per-unit prices were falling.
Now, per unit costs is rising faster than inflation. The WD HDD I bought in 2017 for $65 real ($49 nominal) is now $95 real, 50% more expensive after inflation.
Trust me when I say my income has not increased by 50% post-inflation since then! (Also … I really should not have checked that number. Needless to say, it's not positive.)
People spend $1500 on phones. I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to spend that on computers if they see a need.
But from what I can see a lot of people aren't really interested in PCs. Most of the non-techie, non-gamer people I know do everything on mobile.
I just looked at some low-end NAS-oriented HDDs. The cost $/TB is 2x similar ones I bought 5 years ago.
That has never before happened in the history of computing, and it violates long-held, fundamental assumptions.
It happened in 2011 when massive flooding in Thailand stopped a huge chunk of global production. Hard drive prices pretty much doubled overnight.
No, storage prices were still much lower 5 years later.