2 years ago (almost exactly) I bought a 2 TB external hard drive for $77.
Today I had to buy the same thing -- it cost me $65.
So if I had waited 2 years to buy the first one, I only would have saved $12!
The PC industry is apparently quite mature now; we no longer see rapid year-by-year progress like we experienced in the 1990's -- or even like we see today in the smartphone industry.
If I buy a toaster today, or the same toaster in 3 years, it will cost about the same.
If you consider inflation, two years ago money was worth more, so the difference would be more than just $12.
When something has the same price tag 3 years later, it's actually somewhat less expensive, considering the time value of money.
If you spend $100 today, it would be comparable to spending, say, $95 a year from now, but certainly not $105.
Imagine how many slices of toast you can have in 3 years: that should be worth something (unless you don't like toast).
It depends on where the technology is on the curve ... bleeding edge, cutting edge, widely adopted, widely mass produced, etc.
External drives are old technology ... unless you start getting into SSDs. It's in the SSDs where you've seen precipitous price drops.
Also, LED TVs. You can get a very good 55" LED TV now for $378 at Walmart. These used to run $3,000 about 7-8 years ago.
If they were to come out with a new Hard Drive technology superior to SSD, then these would be prohibitively expensive at first ... partly because they can get away with charging more before the competition increases and partly because the first ones are more expensive to produce as the supply chain logistics aren't all in place yet ... not until they start becoming widely manufactured by multiple producers.
That's good to hear. I think we are reaching the limits of technological advancement, and if that's true, thank God.
They've been saying that since time began. We're still advancing exponentially faster than at any point in history before the Industrial Revolution.