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12:20:2002 Entry: "Ann : Me: Geeky Utopain?"

Me: Geeky Utopain?

Six years ago, I purchased an external hard drive for my 7200 Power Mac. It had 2.1 gigs. Two years ago, I purchased an external hard drive for my iBook for the same price. It had 20 gigs. Just now, I purchased an external hard drive online for my G4 for about the same price. It has 120 gigs. Not that I mind storage getting cheaper by the gig, but it's sort of a case of the emperor's new clothes. Back in 1985 when I first started working on Macs at my then job, I was using a 512 K Mac (that's kilobytes!). In a few years they moved me up to an SE 30. That's 30 megabytes. My first Mac I bought in 1995 had 500 megabytes. Imagine using a 7200 Power Mac with a 500 meg hard drive back in 1985...one would wonder what to do with all that space! Now, Photoshop 7 would practically fill up the whole thing! The thing is, storage isn't really getting cheaper because files are getting bigger. Our needs still need to be met, and the price of those needs have stayed on course, in direct relation to the size of the files. It's all smoke and mirrors. But it's not bad...I'm not complaining about this.

It's too bad that the rest of the economy can't stay in direct relation to our needs in the way the computer hardware industry has. Wouldn't it be nice if we could say that houses *appear* to be getting cheaper because one can buy a larger house or a house with more amenities for the same price one payed in 1990? Or that one could buy a car now for the same price as one would pay in 1985, but that it would include a lot more "stuff?" Makes one wonder why other things can't be like technology, economy-wise. As technology becomes more affordable, other things in society become more out of reach. Wages, especially, are way out of proportion to what wages were several decades ago, workers earning proportionally less, corporate CEOs earning proportionally more. Not that I mean to sound like a geeky utopian or anything, but the economy really does need to look to what is happening with technology becoming more affordable and more available to the masses, because as I see it now, it's the only thing where the price is keeping pace with the need.

2 Comments

For sure! Computers and most electronics for that matter, are so much more affordable now than they used to be! (Thank God!!!)

:o)

Posted by Maria @ 06:21:2002:09:34 PM CST

It's just too bad wages haven't kept up, and that the price of housing, education, transportation (things I think that are pretty essential) are so obscene.

Posted by Ann @ 06:22:2002:09:16 AM CST

By Ann @ 20:23 AM CST:12:20:02 ..::Link::..