It’s an opinion piece and its wrong. For example That is true but the product increase in quality adds value to the product. The increase in the quality of the product doesn’t come free for the company and since the product is at the same price or lower price the argument for price inflation doesn’t hold.
That is incorrect. The cost of product quality is not cumulative. R&D could cheapen the manufacturing process, creating increased profits at the same price. Larger markets allow for mass production. Online and mail order sales channels offer lower sales overheads. Transportation and packaging are more efficient and the competition for the cost to manufacture has also increased by an enormous factor. You have to realize that R&D is a capital investment, not unlike the startup cost to begin a company. In the automotive industry, the asians like to amortize their equipment and research costs into the value of the vehicle, however this is merely a scheme to keep the gross profit margin on sales respectable, and not betray their massive competitive advantage of low labor and material costs. Typically, your initial investment enables a profit scenario that provides a ROI. Like buying stocks and then profiting from the dividends. or investing your money in a bond and reaping the interest. You can't start a company to sell a new product, without doing the R&D to create that product. This isn't a cost to manufacture, but a capital expense, because you now have the intellectual property or equipment to produce goods, just as your sales office would require furniture and telephones. His point is that his stereo was standard when it came out, and may have cost $50. A current standard stereo may cost $200. Now we all know that technology and entertainment hard goods prices fall over time, so why would a stereo cost more dollars now, than it did in the past? We constantly see new interations of products in the market with more features, and lower prices. That's how we ended up with the sub $1000 PC market in the late 1990s. So again, if the cost to improve a product is not cumulative, then why do prices for the same niche items continue to go up over time? Once again, monetary inflation. The more money that is in circulation, the more that people will charge for a good. It's a vicious cycle. It's simple. Monetary inflation.