RAM used to be so cheap they basically gave it away.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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SD cards. Used to be able to get 32 or even 64GB cards for basically pocket money, and now it's something you'd have to save for
Yeah, I sure could use some cheap SD cards now. I feel like a lot of the more privacy conscious gadgets use SD cards to save you from the menace of manufacturer-controlled cloud storage, rightly so!
I remember USB thumb drives hitting crazy lows at one point too, to the point where I was getting some decently sized drives as promo items. I think I paid $40 or so for my very first 250MB USB stick, maybe it was even smaller than that. I also distinctly remember buying a 128GB USB stick for a very similar price in the last decade or two and seeing them even cheaper than that. You do notice a build quality difference between them when you hold them side by side. The old Sandisk feels solid, the led, the cap, the enclosure are all solid and feel super sturdy and like they're one single piece. The newer 128GB PNY is cheap, rattly, trashy plastic wrapped around a circuit board with a goofy retractable usb connector, but obviously outperforms the old one by miles. Would love to have cheap and quality. :-)
I don’t know but in general I’ve just stopped consumering. I get what I need and that’s about it. It’s my way of protesting not just prices but just how shit everything is today.
I buy independent media now, thats still cheap. I can pay the monthly subs for two indie news orgs for the same price I pay for four beers.
Note: I'm Australian, yeah beers a bit expensive here, but come on, value for money!
Bitcoin
Capitalism.
Everyone’s talking tech, but I’ll add car parts.
Everything from aftermarket parts to basic things like filters or even windhsield wipers.
$25/blade. If you have a 3-blade car, that’s $75.
Had to replace a battery. They used to be $100-125 for a good one. Nope. $200 for a mid grade replacement.
It wasn’t cheap, but they were affordable. Not so much anymore.
Pets ( vet was never cheap but was affordable) I’ve spent over 7k this year in vet bills for 2 cats and one dog.
Drinks in a restaurant. I always order water. One day I was in the mood for tea until I looked down at the $4.99 price. Strangely, soft drinks we're $3.99. I guess many of you aren't surprised, but like I said, I never really order drinks with a meal so it had been a while since I had seen the price.
I honestly just finds it absurd that soda is usually as expensive as water. Or water is a few cents cheaper. I mean i drink water anyway, but still.
Wait.. you have to pay for water at a pub or restaurant or cafe? Where are you from?
He's probably referring to bottled water.
Right, that makes sense!
(Not that bottled water is as expensive as soda, that's borderline criminal imo)
Depends where it is. Wetherspoons still does £1.99 a pint. I also found a place recently that I can abuse their system to get double my drinks order but even with that little cheat its still like £3.50/pint so I don't go there much. Its mostly a human engineering attack combined with a little bit of knowledge of POS systems.
Any soft drink that's not Arizona iced tea.
I haven't checked lately, is the price still on the can, though?
Yes it is. Not as cheap as before (~$1.49 last I checked), but it's still a good buy if one decides to eat out. Fast food's profit margins on drinks are notorious, after all.
Fast Food. Went in to Subway yesterday and got a single sandwich meal and it was 25 bucks. Hell, McDonalds isn't even really cheap, the sandwiches that used to be on the dollar menu are like 4 bucks a pop now.
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Streaming services.
Thank god piracy is free and it's easier than ever.
I love piracy. It's never let me down.
Exactly. I've been pirating content for 20+ years, except for a small period where Netflix was actually good. Now, I regret even paying for that short period; they don't deserve any of my money.
Matinee movie tickets. Outback 6 oz sirloins. 12 packs of soda. I just watch Netflix, cook steak at home (still expensive but I get more bang for buck) and drink water.
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Basically any fast food. Within my lifetime fast food went from cheap end of week treat, to being a complete ripoff that's almost never worth shelling out for...
Which is weird cause the price of actual restaurants hasn't gone up as much during that time, so it now oftentimes makes more sense to just go to an actual restaurant where you'll (usually) get better food in better portions
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kebabs. i still remembrer they were 4.5€ before covid. now it's 8€ at best
fuck that
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GPU's. I remember before the mining boom and the AI boom, three to four hundred bucks would get you a decent card. Managed to score a 9070xt for close to retail price recently and that will have to last me at least 3 more years, if not forever.
You considered $400 cheap?!
Yeah, at the time I had four times my current income.
Hard drives. They've gone up like 400%
And don't even get me started on RAM
RAM! 😭
Especially Crucial RAM, since Micron stopped selling to consumers in favour of datacentres.
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More drives for my NAS - 16tb was about A$250 4 years ago. Same drives are now nearly A$1200.
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So many things. Eating out. Taking my car to work when i still had one (I take the motorcycle, so much cheaper on gas). Going to the movies. Any kind of vacation. Meat. Groceries that are not essential. I'm considering replacing my lawn with a dry garden because water. Many video games. A/C if I'm not seriously uncomfortable. PC upgrades. Phone upgrades. I'm sure forgetting many. It's all essentials now.
Brisket
Fast food
Fast casual food
Applebee's-tier restaurants
Japanese cars
Used cars, motorcycles, ATVs, boats
Camping
Skiing
Taxi rides
Corn mazes
Pumpkin patches
Escape rooms
Concerts
Bars/Clubs
Retro video games and consoles
Thrift stores
Storage units
Apartments in the bad part of town
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I refuse to purchase anything from Amazon. Bezos is not getting any of my money.
I feel like I should stop buying on eBay.
Actually, I kind of want to see a price fixing lawsuit against eBay now. They are explicitly telling sellers what price to list their items at, raising the prices of goods sold on eBay to the detriment of buyers so that they can get more money out of the commission fees.
The funny thing is my income has risen dramatically in the last few years, but I'm still approximately at the same level of purchasing power that I was six years ago.
If you had told me in 2012 I would be making low-mid six figures and still feel poor, I would have laughed at you.
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Beef. Beef used to be in the affordable to readily affordable range. Now for a pound of ground beef it's about half as much for a bag of chicken breasts.
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