[WillPostForFood]

It is happening with cars too, it just that features are being added even faster than the price can come down. If you wanted Ford F-150 in 1970, you could do most of it, but it would have been a multi-million dollar car. You get all that for 50k. You are getting a lot more per dollar.

This reminds me the housing discussing - a part of the affordability problem is that houses have gotten much bigger. And have air conditioning. And have to comply with strict building codes. And have to be fire safe.

[thayne]

> houses have gotten much bigger

Which is a problem. I know a people who would be happy with a smaller house, but there just aren't enough on the market, and the scarcity of them leads to bidding wars that drive the price up. Meanwhile huge houses sit on the market for months, because no one can afford them.

[oivey]

I don’t think this is true. Advancements in technology often make things possible that previously were not at any price. Engines, for example, are better than ever in part due to computer modeling that would have been impossible in the 70s. Same deal with aerodynamics, safety features, and a million other things. In the 70s, you couldn’t have those things for any price. They required decades of development in other sectors to open possibilities for automobiles.

[WillPostForFood]

Most technology on cars existed years or decades before the became commonplace and affordable enough to use outside racing or exotic cars.

Airbags were patented in the 1950s. Modern ABS in 1971. Fist electronic fuel injector in 1957. You could take the Formula 1 level technology of 1970, and with enough money, apply it to a pickup truck. It would be shockingly expensive - and not as good. T

hat's my point! You are getting so much more for your dollar today, even though prices have risen faster than inflation. You are getting a multi-million dollar truck for $50k.

[orwin]

And 3D printing helped a lot too. Not as much as computer modelling, but still.