I was just thinking in the back of my head about how cheap LEDs have made types of lighting that would’ve cost way too much (both to install, and in electricity usage) no longer stupidly expensive.
For example, I noticed on Amazon some cheap furniture that has LEDs/power outlets sort of integrated right into them. Looks pretty cyberpunk-ish to my eyes. And I know years ago that sort of thing would’ve been marked up to high heavens.
Fancy lighting in general has changed drastically in price/design.
So…what are some things, due to changes in demand or changes in tech or changes in anything…that would’ve been really expensive back in the day, but which no longer seem to be, making them more frugal than they used to be?
Embedded computers.
It used to be that everything got a custom or at least customized circuit board, and fancy wifi or Bluetooth functionality, or smarter programmable features would make that really expensive.
Recently, the cost of embeddable system on a chip setups has dropped low enough that it’s typically cheaper to put more computer power then you need in a device than to make something custom.
It’s why everything has wi-fi and Bluetooth now. It’s cheaper to use the prefab piece, and those all come with that build in, so you may as well advertise it.