first, read this. (then come back.) actually, forget about it, here\’s a summary: for the most part, now is a bad time to by consumer electronics like DVD players, computers, and iPods. why? because technology continues to advance while prices continue to go down. so, if you wait, you can get a toy with more features, for cheaper!
the dateline of the article is today, but it may as well have been december 12, 1994, the day i put in my order for the macintosh performa 6115 at the st. olaf college computing center. 8 MB of RAM, 250 MB hard drive, fourteen-inch CRT monitor… almost $3,000. i paid $57 a month for that hog until i graduated in may of 1998, by which time my computer was nearly obsolete. i was livid a year after i bought my mac to learn that prices had dropped by over a grand so i penned a note to steve jobs voicing my displeasure. i didn\’t get it.
y\’see, if you\’re waiting for the right time to buy a particular bit of technology– as far as the perfect combination of price and features goes– you\’ll never buy anything. check wikipedia for moore\’s law and you\’ll learn why. at some point you just need to make the committment and realize that your friends who wait longer will likely pay less and have cooler features.
now, back to listening to my 30 gig monochrome-display iPod without video player support.
Leave a Reply