As tech enthusiasts and gamers, are we not all sick and tired of being punching bags?
Yeah! Yeah! I mean, not only does it feel like truly innovative new gadgets are few and far between these
days, but the prices for them have gone from expensive to ridiculous faster than a cod
lobby turns racist. And the worst part, the worst part is the reason for it.
These chips that are supposed to be affordable aren't because they're being hoarded by a
bunch of jackasses for the sole purpose of creating the giant slop creature that's trying
to take our jobs. Is there any good news?
Yes, there is a lot of bad stuff happening right now, but a part of the problem is the
way that RageBait generates more clicks, incentivizing negative news to spread, and so I think it's
more important than ever to take a step back and appreciate some of the positive things
happening in tech, because there's actually a lot more happening than most of us probably
realize. For starters, some really smart creators have demonstrated how unsustainable the current
AI bubble is, which gives me real hope that while AI in some form is clearly here to stay,
this dystopian tech bro infinite money glitch dumpster fire isn't.
There are even upsides to some of the things that get us down.
No one likes waiting longer for a new console or a GPU, but everyone likes it when developers
optimize their new games for those older systems, especially when the broader economy is suffering.
And while Microsoft seems determined to make Windows 11 as crappy as possible, in the background,
the year of the Linux desktop is quickly turning from a meme into a reality.
Just like I'm turning this segue into our sponsor.
You know, it's easy to get lost in the recent headlines and overlook just how much cheaper
consumer technology has actually become compared to just about any other time in my life.
I mean, it's tempting for us to think, well, of course there'll be a new chip next year
that's better in every way and also less expensive, but my recent factory tours over
in Asia really opened my eyes to the incredible talent, not to mention the R&D expense that
goes into making everything from tiny SSDs to giant TVs as affordable as possible for
us. I mean, look at this glue robot, for instance.
They built this for the express purpose of saving just a few pennies per TV.
That doesn't sound like much, but it's this kind of obsessive optimization that has enabled
flat screen TVs to completely defy inflation for decades now in spite of ever rising materials
and labor costs. So when people ask me, how do you keep your joy and enthusiasm for tech?
That's the first thing I think of. Even more broadly, as the price of food, fuel, and housing has skyrocketed relative to earnings,
consumer tech items like VR headsets, cell phones, game consoles, cameras, and gaming
PCs have continually leveled up in their capabilities while staying within or at least
pretty close to their traditional price bands.
And that's even after the insane pricing surges that we've seen in GPUs and, more recently,
the RAM apocalypse. Look, I'm not going to tell you everything is as affordable as I'd like it to be, or
as it should be, I literally just wrote a video about how awful the RAM situation is.
But I do think part of the path to greener mental pastures is reminding ourselves that
a dollar buys a lot more tech today than it ever has.
Today, you can build an $800 gaming PC with a 12 Gigabyte GPU that will handle high-end
1080p and even 1440p gaming, and that includes a free copy of Battlefield f***ing 6.
In 1993, that would have gotten you, let's see, not even this PC that was so mind-bogglingly
affordable that the LA Times wrote an article about it.
Obviously, I understand that that is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Back then, an entire family would have shared that one computer.
But the modern world demands everyone have access to their own device to function now.
But hey, if you're only after basic functionality, the price floor goes even lower.
Chromebooks. They might not be the sexiest thing, but they are regularly available at prices that would
allow a family of five to each have their own device for what is still less than that
1993 PC. And that's even ignoring inflation.
Of course, not everyone wants a Chromebook.
So what about the enthusiast here? Same thing.
Here's an ultimate 4K gaming build that we did 11 years ago.
By basically every single measure, modern buyers have it better.
Without putting any work or research into this, I can just click on magnificent AMD gaming
slash streaming PC on the front page of PC Partpaker and get a machine that's over $1,000
less and is better in every conceivable way.
Sometimes I think we get a little loss in the sauce when it comes to performance expectations.
There are absolutely poorly optimized titles, looking at you, Cities Skylines, too.
But in general, I think we have to come to accept that 8 million pixels is a lot.
It was hard to drive then, and it's hard to drive now, especially as gamers' expectations
for lighting and visual fidelity continue to grow. The PC gaming industry has smacked us around a little, but it's by and large been pretty
good to us. And we're not just talking about the hardware.
I picked up a copy of an older double A game the other day so that my daughter and I could
play it together. It was under $5.
Truly. Glory B to Gay Ben, who half-blessed us with his winter sale bounty, and okay, not everyone
wants to play a 17-year-old strategy game, but how about this?
I also just picked up Expedition 33, the literal game of the year, for just over $40.
I mean, when I was a kid, I paid $50 for Pilot Wings, which would barely even qualify as a
Mario Party minigame these days. And I get that this might come across a little bit back in my day, but I do generally stand
behind my belief that gaming is, pound for pound, the best value entertainment that you
can buy. Five out of six of the Game of the Year nominees this year can be had for less than 50 US dollars,
and each of them will last you many hours. And that's something we should take a moment to appreciate.
Do it. Drop a little note to your favorite indie game developer.
I'm sure it's going to brighten their day. I picked Radical Fish.
So mathematically, then, there's a pretty easy case that we shouldn't be mad at the
talented people who create the products and experiences that we love so much, and yet
we are mad. We're super mad.
So why is that? Well, that's going to be a deep one-to-one pack because it is both kind of hard to justify,
as we've demonstrated already, and yet still also completely understandable.
Let's talk about that. I don't know about you, but my housing costs have gone from less than 20% of my monthly
expenses to above 40%.
So sure, yeah, my Xbox controller might cost the same as it did 18 years ago, but the share
of my disposable income that I can allocate to it is being chipped away on all sides.
And I recognize that I am one of the lucky ones. I didn't go into major debt for school.
My parents gave me a deal in my first car, and I stayed healthy enough that I've never
missed more than a couple of days of work for an hockey injury here or there.
When you feel like things have gotten harder, it's not your imagination, and it sure as
hell isn't your avocado toast. You are right to be tired of hearing, um, actually, it's not more expensive if you account
for inflation. Yes, inflation is part of the equation.
But it doesn't tell the whole story, and it can also be a bulls*** way to justify the
rising cost of everything and normalize corporate greed that directly affects wages.
A better measure of affordability over time is consumer buying power, which has fallen
behind inflation for decades. Couple that with corporate consolidation and the new threat of AI.
No wonder people are at their breaking points, but I do want to make sure that we're not
muddling our passion for technology and our anger about the state of the world.
Let's look at the affordability of tech a different way. By tracking it relative to wage growth, which is broadly considered a more representative
measure than just raw inflation. According to Fred from 1995 to 2024, there was just over a 40% increase in real median
personal income. That means that if we compare the $300 launch price of the PS1 to the current price of the
PS5, we're actually tracking pretty damn close.
Not with inflation, but with real world wage increases.
Yes, I know that the base PS5 doesn't come with the Blu-ray drive, free cloud saves,
or even online play. But neither did the PS1, and it's not hard to find similar examples where the tech industry
has come through for us, delivering more value over time rather than less.
It's also not that hard to find areas where we've been let down though.
Hard. Gotcha Mechanics and in-game gambling have created financial incentives for developers
to prey on people with addictive personalities, which is something I fell victim to.
I actually opened up about it on WAN Show. It really sucks.
With that said, I might just be the biggest PS1 fanboy this side of Pluto, and even I
will literally slap anyone who says that it provides a better overall experience for
most people than a PS5. It was incredible.
It was influential. It was my personal favorite.
But let's be honest, the PS5 library has way more games that people want to play today.
And while few of them are PS5 titles in the traditional exclusive sense, that's great.
Better access to games is what we were fighting for.
Right? Not everything's going our way, but hey, it's good to celebrate wins, right?
And cross-platform compatibility was a huge one for both consumer choice and for affordability.
Same goes for things like removable media. Do you remember when saving your game meant buying a proprietary 128 kilobyte memory card
for almost $20? Now I can just pull the SD card out of my Switch and throw it into my laptop.
This move towards industry standards affects more than just gaming.
The introduction of USB-C, LTT cables coming soon by the way, was a watershed moment.
I mean, many of you will remember that not that long ago, every single device you owned
had a proprietary charger and a proprietary cable so that the manufacturer could milk
you for accessories profit. These days, you can pack a single power brick into your LTT backpack and that'll work with
your ASUS laptop, your Valve Steam Deck, your Apple iPhone, your Nintendo Switch, your
Ugreen Power Bank, your Sennheiser headphones, and your Sony camera.
Wow, that all fits in there. Huh.
Nice. lttstore.com. But, while I meme on it, obviously, often, it's also important for me to point out that
you don't need to buy this or any of the stuff that goes in it.
Yeah, or any of the shiny gadgets that we show off on this channel.
This is going to rub some people the wrong way, but I think a big part of why we're
so angry right now is the unrealistic standards that social media creates.
When Linus grew up, there were cell phones that cost $2,000.
It's just that his parents didn't have it. But it didn't bother them because no one we knew had them.
But now, when I go to a creator convention, there are literally people who gave me funny
looks because I didn't have an iPhone at the time to tap and exchange information.
I mean, even on channels that aren't constantly telling us that we need the latest and greatest.
Here are a few recent LTTs about deal hunting and getting the most out of what you already
have. It can be hard to unsee the performance of a 5090 on a tandem OLED display, and I get
why that can be frustrating. But does that mean that we shouldn't cover them?
LTT has always covered cutting-edge technologies, knowing that it's a dream for most people
today. But thanks to the magic of rich people buying two of them, they're just going to become
more accessible over time, either as the technology matures, or more directly on the second-hand
market. I think another issue is the way that some media frame this conversation, telling you
to be angry that a video card exists, but it was never targeted at the 99%.
I don't have a 5090. Should I feel bad about my PC?
F*** no. I'm running a B580, and yeah, maybe I can't run the latest games with all the bells and
whistles at 4K, but I don't need that to enjoy myself, do I?
And frankly, neither do you. Even if you're still running a second-gen i5 and NVIDIA GTX 1030, there is a wild world
of older, emulated games that can be enjoyed on even modest hardware, often for free.
We've said it before, but it's worth saying again. The point of this video, guys, is not to minimize the very real frustration that you and your
family and friends might be facing right now. It is valid to be mad, maybe even cynical and jaded, but just because it's valid, does
that necessarily mean it's helpful? Like, I could be pissed that Halo Infinite will never get a split-screen co-op mode, and
I am a little, but I could also be excited for the coming surge of co-op-centric games
that look freaking awesome. I could be mad that the PlayStation 6 is likely going to be delayed, not to mention
more expensive because of the RAMpocalypse, and I am, but okay, bright side, I can also
be happy that in these trying times, Rockstar is going to be forced to optimize GTA 6 for
the hardware that gamers already own. I could also be disappointed that the Steam Machine isn't a cutting-edge FPS monster,
but maybe it was time for someone with the influence of Valve to normalize just enjoying
PC games rather than hyperfixating on graphical fidelity, while also low-key ending the Windows
gaming monopoly. The point is that tech is supposed to help you, it's supposed to make your life better,
it's not supposed to dictate your mood, and if you're already working on an angry comment
about this video, I offer you this, a reminder that your mental health doesn't need to be
shaped by tech bros who don't give a f*** out to you.
Staying mad doesn't mean that you're being effective in the resistance, it just means
that you are unhappy, which is a real downer, like, I don't even feel like doing this segue
to our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video, we'd love to hear a few things that you're excited for
or grateful for in the tech space, or even in the world, we could all use a little positivity
these days, and if you want more positivity, go hug a loved one.
Make a walk while listening to your favorite album of all time, or maybe go watch the video
that I got to make with my son recently about him choosing a Kindle.