For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in the latest gadgets and fancied myself as a technologist. I was quite young during the golden age of the PC, but I was one the luckier ones that got a PC when I was 14 in 8th grade, thanks to my parents! I didn’t tinker much with the build then, but I spent time during university tinkering a lot with software and somewhat less with hardware. It was after I was working that I really had disposable income for getting the latest gadgets and experimenting with new tools which I did with the start of the smartphone, tablet and wearables revolution.

These days, in the interest of reducing my rampant consumerism and more inline with my frugal nature, I’m not the first to splurge on the latest gadget. In fact, I’m rarely clamouring to buy the latest gadget these days.

However, contrary to my initial assumption, it’s cheaper than ever being a gadget freak today. The Mac was released in 1984 with a price tag of $2495 which is around $6700 in 2024 dollars as per GTP-4o. So, for the price of a single computer in the 80s, you can (creatively) get Apple’s entire range of products today. The gizmo enthusiast in the 80s probably spent way more in terms of absolute dollars and their income share to score gadgets than we do today! This is technology at play, where technological advancements, manufacturing improvements and economies of scale have resulted in more affordable state of the art products! This is something I’m grateful for!

As a corollary, we need to mindful of the faster turnover cycles, targeted marketing and social media driven hyper-consumerism today. But if you correct for this, it’s better than ever for your pocket to be technologist today!