Yes, inflation has come for tech products, too - The Verge

Inflation has pushed prices up across the board for many things, and technology products aren’t immune. It’s just harder to see where the price increases are happening, but if you look closely, you can see the impacts of inflation in new devices from Apple, Samsung, and others.

For many, this summer has been the season of inflation. After fuel prices spiked earlier this year (and have only slowly started to come down), it seems like everything we had to pay for suddenly became more expensive. Outside of the gas station, this is most likely felt at the grocery store, where staples like bread, pasta, vegetables, and other consumables all cost more now than they did a year (or even just a few months) ago.

Inflation has also impacted the price of tech products, like smartphones and laptops, but it can be harder to spot. Unlike food or other consumables, technology products have a long production cycle, often taking 18 months or more to go from an idea to a store shelf. Many companies set a product’s target price at the start of its development cycle, which makes them more insulated from short-term swings in inflation. Tech devices also rarely go up in price after they’ve been released; in fact, we’re accustomed to them becoming less expensive over time.

But this year, we’ve seen numerous examples where devices have either gotten explicitly more expensive or just haven’t fallen in price over time the way we’ve been conditioned to expect them to. Part of this is due to the ongoing supply chain crunch, which makes it harder for companies to source components, especially for devices that don’t use high-end smartphone or laptop processors. But big companies are also not immune to rising fuel costs and other inflationary effects, and that’s also driving prices up for your next gadget.

Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Apple’s latest MacBook Air, which was announced at the beginning of June and started shipping in July, comes with a starting price of $200 more than the model it’s succeeding. It’s hard to say that’s entirely due to inflation because the new Air comes with a host of new features to help justify its cost: a new chassis design, better display, faster processor, and so on.

https://www.theverge.com/23311213/inflation-tech-apple-samsung-iphone-sonos-meta-price-increase

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