Great article on Lego prices...

mathew

LegoFanTexas said:

But the units in the 80's were hundreds of dollars (thousands in today's money), while a new microwave today is less than $100, and frankly works better.

Another example of forced obsolescence: I bought my house new back in 2004 and had an over-the-range microwave installed at the time to save counter space. I paid a bit of a premium for it, but I didn't want to install one later down the road. Anyway, a few years ago, the microwave suddenly goes kaput. No reason. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent out a service guy. Turns out that a circuit board fried and it would be a $200 fix. I had the option of buying another microwave for around $250 install it myself or pay for the fix. I took the easy route and had it repaired. I was mad about it so I researched the issue online. Turned out that I wasn't alone and there were hundreds of other people who had the same problem. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but I think manufacturers today design products around a three to five year life expectancy.

rocao

I think it suffices to say that LEGO has always been a premium toy and priced accordingly. The coupling between the retail cost and the production cost is a lot looser than the coupling between the retail cost and what TLG thinks it can charge for their product.

cheshirecat

If you can hit your microwave with a sledgehhammer more than once then it's over engineered. Nothing good about that.

LegoFanTexas

mathew said:

Another example of forced obsolescence: I bought my house new back in 2004 and had an over-the-range microwave installed at the time to save counter space. I paid a bit of a premium for it, but I didn't want to install one later down the road. Anyway, a few years ago, the microwave suddenly goes kaput. No reason. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent out a service guy. Turns out that a circuit board fried and it would be a $200 fix. I had the option of buying another microwave for around $250 install it myself or pay for the fix. I took the easy route and had it repaired. I was mad about it so I researched the issue online. Turned out that I wasn't alone and there were hundreds of other people who had the same problem. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but I think manufacturers today design products around a three to five year life expectancy.

Not quite, there is another view on that.

In the past 30 years, computer aided manufacturing and robots have brought down the cost of mass manufacturing stuff. But that doesn't change the cost to do labor intensive home repairs.

30 years ago you would have paid $1,000 for that over the range microwave oven and perhaps $100 to repair it, due to lower labor costs.

Today you can buy a new one for $250, but the repair cost has gone up because it still has to be done by a human in your home

Is is not a manufacture conspiracy, it is just economics in the 21st century.

LegoFanTexas

cheshirecat said:

If you can hit your microwave with a sledgehhammer more than once then it's over engineered. Nothing good about that.

I just find it amusing that microwave ovens being hit by sledgehammers ended up on a LEGO forum. :)

But I agree with you, it is over engineering to design it for that, and I have no desire to pay extra for it.

LegoFanTexas

mathew said:

First you assume that your iPad will still be operational 20 years from now, but then state that it won't matter. Ok then what about five years from now? Yes, the iPad is well made for a tablet computer. It's also much more expensive than say the Kindle so it should be built to last. However, as others have said, already the first gen iPad is no longer being supported by Apple. This is a device that is only three years old. Many people paid upwards of $700 for a device that they may only get 3-5 years out of before it is no longer useful regardless if you can put a new battery in it or not. To me that makes it a very expensive disposable device. Much more than a $30 Mr. Coffee.

Consider that the average desktop or notebook computer also has a 3-5 year useful life before it needs to be replaced.

Sure, it will still keep working, but at some point the marginal cost of replacing it becomes smaller than the cost of not replacing it.

That iPad 1 doesn't stop being useful, just because Apple doesn't offer new iOS versions for it, so I'm not sure why you think it is any more disposable than a normal computer.

The same rings true for cell phones, which have become computers in their own right. My mother still uses her old flip phone, but the majority of people now replace their phones every 2 years or so.

Another point about Mr. Coffee... 30 years ago Mr. Coffee made a pot of black coffee, today it does the same thing, maybe a bit faster, maybe a bit more accurate on the temp, but otherwise it is a pot of black coffee. The iPad 4 is only 3 years newer than the iPad 1, but it is at least quadruple the speed, 1/3 the weight, four times the screen resolution, etc.

So it isn't like you're just buying a "replacement" iPad that does the same things.

mathew

Back to Lego: If you look at the old boxes from 80's you'll see that Lego were manufactured in Switzerland also. Perhaps it's just my Eurocentric sensibilities, but I get some fulfillment out of that. How many toys today that are sold in Walmart are made in Switzerland? I don't have facts, but I can safely say that the answer is zero.

LegoFanTexas

I would have to agree with you, the answer is likely zero. :-)

flecski

LegoFanTexas said:

That iPad 1 doesn't stop being useful, just because Apple doesn't offer new iOS versions for it, so I'm not sure why you think it is any more disposable than a normal computer.

My wife's ipad2 won't let her start some programs because there is a newer version available that doesn't work with the ios that works with her pad. I fully expect her ipad2 to be just a web browser in a couple of years time and that is not what we paid a lot of money for.
I can see where mathew is coming from.

mathew

Since I've upgraded to iOS 6 I've noticed more apps crashing on my iPad 2. It's nothing traumatic, but one of the key things Apple pushes with the iPad is that it's not like a PC. It's a post-PC device and it's supposed to just work like a toaster oven. I still think we've gotten our money's worth out of it because it gets used a good 2-5 hours a day by our family. It's just not as "magical" as Apple advertises it as.

y2josh

At least so far as technology is concerned, there has to be some consideration given to the overall complexity of the designs. My Super Nintendo, for example, is the same one I've had since 1992 and I have never had a single problem with it (I could almost say the same of my Nintendo were it not for the issue with the pins).

Transversely, I've already been through two PS3s (this has to be the worst-built gaming system I've ever dealt with) and I have no fantasies about my 360 lasting 20+ years. The moving parts alone virtually ensure that, with normal use, I'm going to wind up running the 360 down sooner rather than later.

That said, I do agree that the quality of LEGO has declined recently, but I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for awhile longer and chalk it up to 'perfecting the ABS process'.

CCC

If this is the new I've-got-old-technology-brag thread, then I have a working Mattel intellivision which we got in about 1980. I went and got it out of the loft about 6 weeks ago and tried it out, after discussing it on here!

cheshirecat

Intellivision rocks - although those controllers are horrible! My thumbs hurt just thinking about them.

CCC

Yeah, plus some of those plastic overlap things seem to have perished a bit, but after just one game I can still remember some of the key presses needed after over 25 years. Especially on sea battle. Although my kids are not impressed with it.

cheshirecat

^ How could anyone not like burger time, lock and chase or dungeons and dragons... Although come to think of it I can understand why todays kids might not be impressed with:



But if you haven't played frog bog, you haven't lived!

mathew

I went through a classic gaming phase almost twenty years ago. I would raid the thrift stores for games and systems. This is back in the early 90's so you could stumble upon some great finds. Eventually the thrift stores caught on and started pricing Atari Pac Man cartridges like they were rookie Mickey Mantel baseball card (I'm exaggerating but you get my point). Eventually purchased a Vectrex system which at the time was kind of the holy grail of retro systems.

Personally I find most of the old games don't age well. The most fun I have with are the Atari 2600 games that use the paddle controllers. Games like Breakout, Circus (personal fave), Warlords I could play for hours despite the simple gameplay. Too bad nobody has come out with a modern paddle controller that works over bluetooth.

cheshirecat

Intellivision and Atari 2600 - just looking at them you can see they were contemporaries - right down to the nice wood effect trim!

y2josh

I'm surprised with all the Intellivision talk that no one's mentioned Astrosmash. That game was fantastic.

CCC

^ It was mentioned last time. http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/149375/#Comment_149375

Remembering that is what made me go and fine mine.

CupIsHalfEmpty

I've read a couple comments on the forum talking about the "Licensed set Premium" that Lego supposedly charges so I figured I would bump this excellent research article about Lego prices over the years that debunks the myth of Lego charging a premium for licensed sets.

Here's the link to the article from the first post

And here's the section on Licensed sets:

Does a licensed LEGO set run at a premium?
For many, it may seems that the advent of licensed sets3 correlates with the perceived increase in prices. The 1990s and before were a nostalgic heyday of affordable LEGO sets. This is not quite true. Below is a chart that compares the price per piece of licensed sets and unlicensed sets starting in 1999. 1999 is the first year that LEGO had major licensed themes.


Figure 9 Comparison of unlicensed sets and licensed sets since 1999 – Adjusted for Inflation
Comparison of non-Licensed and licensed set prices
Comparison of non-Licensed and licensed set prices 1999-2012
As you can see, there is no correlation between the licensing of a set and the price of a set. At least from what our chart shows, licensed sets do not carry a premium. Since about 2007, there is virtually no difference between the average price per piece of a licensed set and an unlicensed set.
If the price of a piece of LEGO has remained stable, perhaps the size of the bricks has decreased.