10 Things that Are Cheaper than Expected

by Unbelievable Facts5 years ago

6 Black Obsidian

Apparently, black obsidian is the most common sort of obsidian, so it’s actually sort of cheap to buy. A square meter of the substance can be brought for under $100 in some areas.

Black Obsidian
Image credits: Ji-Elle/Wikipedia, Wikipedia

Black obsidian is the most commonly adorned healing stone. The stone is said to have strong psychic-protection power. It is a crystal used for spiritual and physical healing. The material forms when molten lava cools down very quickly and does not have time to turn into glass. They come in different colors, but the black ones are the most widely available.

Because of their high availability, black obsidian is found at quite cheaper rates as compared to the colored obsidians. Apparently, an entire square meter of the material can be bought for less than $100 in many parts of the United States.

7 Modern Electronics

Even though the level of tech involved in modern electronics is quite high, their prices have come down drastically as the components involved cost much less nowadays. 

Modern Electronics
Image credits: Max Pixel

Innovation in technology is great for consumers. As there are more advanced technological innovations, products get better whereas prices drop reasonably. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the last 18 years, the prices of all major tech-product categories have dropped drastically, especially computer hardware.

The main reason behind the drop in prices is the reduction in the size of the components involved in making modern electronics. Even though the tech involved is of a high level, the components used in manufacturing have dramatically decreased in size. With a decrease in size, the cost of assembling them and labor costs have become cheaper leading to a decrease in the overall price of modern electronics.

8 Ethernet Cables

The price for a 100-foot ethernet cable is $9.99 at Walmart. That amounts to 10 cents for one foot of cable that has the potential to transfer data at very high speeds.

Ethernet Cables
Image credits: Pixabay

There are incredibly cheap ethernet cables available in the market. But at the same time, there are expensive ones. Apple offers a Cat 6 15″ ethernet cable for $20. The same cable is available at BestBuy for $25, whereas HomeDepot offers it for $19, and Amazon has a similar one for just $5! The same cable is available across a wide price range.

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Normally, the cheaper cables offer almost the same performance as the expensive ones. The only problem arises in the case of either the plug fitting or the duration of survival. Sometimes cheap cables do not properly fit in the plug and remain loose leading to inconsistencies in service. Also, they wear and tear faster as compared to the expensive ones. But that is not always the case. Considering the price, they offer quite a spectacular service.

Some people have gone on to declare that expensive HDMI cables are just a marketing ploy to get people to pay more money for the same cable available at cheaper prices. (source)

9 Fast Food in the US

Fast food chains have piggybacked on the cheap cost of corn and kept ramming too many calories into cheap food. Consumers are paying the health price now.

Fast food
Image credits: Tripadvisor

There are numerous reasons for increasing obesity in the US, the major reason being the cheap prices of high-fat food. According to Bryan Walsh, the low prices for food start with corn. The production of corn has almost tripled in the last 40 years. Increase in production has been aided by subsidized chemicals and steroids that are being used in the fields for better and faster production.

Money might be a scarcity in the United States but cheap food is not. This has led to a paradigm shift. With the abundance of cheap food, the expenditure on food in terms of percentage of total income has fallen by almost half in the last 50 years. But obesity, on the other hand, has doubled. The reason is simple – cheap food comes at the cost of health. In the US, one dollar buys an average of 1,200 calories of chips while only 250 calories of fresh vegetables and 170 calories of fresh fruits. When the fast food companies started cramming calories into just a dollar’s worth of food, they did not realize the health repercussions. (source)

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10 Home Entertainment

In 1982, a color console Sony TV with a 26” screen cost between $1,000 and $1,400. Today, a Samsung 43” 5200 Series Full HD Smart LED TV costs around $497.00 at Walmart. Quality has gone up with the price coming down.

Samsung LED TV
Image credits: Walmart

Gone are the days when home entertainment used to be a luxury. Now, television sets have become quite affordable as compared to a few decades back. You would think that with the development of technology and the inception of smart TVs, prices would have gone up, but the reverse has happened.

Sixty-three years ago when color television first came into the market, the average price was equivalent to around $11,000 in today’s money. Considering that in 2017, an LG OLED55B7A can be bought for $2,300, the earlier days of television were indeed really pricey. Also, when one looks at the price-per-inch, it has gone down from $110 per inch in the 1950s to $1.24 in 2017! TVs have gotten bigger and cheaper.

A similar trend also happened in Japan, Korea, and China. (source)

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