{"id":3,"date":"2005-11-02T14:08:42","date_gmt":"2005-11-02T19:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=3"},"modified":"2008-11-07T11:53:28","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T16:53:28","slug":"the-worst-investment-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/3\/the-worst-investment-ever","title":{"rendered":"Computers: The Worst Investment Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='\/wp-content\/ibmpc_small.jpg' alt='$4000 Paperweight' class=\"alignright\" \/>I&#8217;m convinced that computers make the worst monetary investment of a physical item in history, continually going obsolete and losing 95% of their value in just a few years.  As a result, I&#8217;ve spent most of my money on things that are now near-worthless.  This sort of situation is probably unique in the history of mankind if you think about it.  If I want some quick cash, I can&#8217;t just sell my computer that I paid $2000 for a year ago to get $2000, or even $1000.  Not only since it&#8217;s used, but since it&#8217;s yesterday&#8217;s news that it is now worth bupkis.  Contrast this to buying a used car for $2000.  Take good care of it, and it&#8217;s probably still worth about $2000.  Or real estate, which only seems to rise in value over time (unless the neighborhood goes to hell).  Or, heck &#8212; even a table.  You can buy one for $20 at a yard sale.  It works.  You use it.  You can sell it for $20 if it still does its function.  Nobody has come out with a &#8220;Super Table 2000&#8221; that has completely obsoleted your make and model of table.  No &#8212; we who love computers pour our hard-earned dollars into elaborate gadgets that lose all their physical value in no time.  I bought an iPod in 2003 that cost $400, now I&#8217;d be hard-pressed to get $50 for it on Ebay.  And all these Palm and Windows CE PDA palmtop whatevers.. they&#8217;re all $500 to $1000 one year, and the next you can&#8217;t sell them for more than $100 (Thus making them, along with other dedicated gadgets like cell phones and iPods, even worse &#8220;investments&#8221; than computers).<\/p>\n<p><img src='\/wp-content\/ps2fleet_small.jpg' alt='A Fleet of Paperweights' class=\"alignright\" \/>So here I am, years later, after spending thousands upon thousands on miscellaneous computers and electronic do-hickeys.  I need to drum up some cash.  The first thing a traditionalist would say is, &#8220;Why not sell what you&#8217;ve bought and make some money?&#8221;  Well, I look around.  Gee, don&#8217;t I have anything worth anything?  What the hell happened to that ten grand I spent over the last five years?  I can&#8217;t see it anywhere.  I look all over the house.. it&#8217;s just not there anymore.  It has vanished like money poured into a deep, deep hole. Computers are a great way to destroy value.  It&#8217;s not like what my dad could do with his camera collection, circa 1970-1990.  If he wanted a new camera for his collection, he&#8217;d just sell his old ones (for about as much or more than he paid for them) to make enough money to buy a new one (of course my dad&#8217;s camera collection is becoming obsolete thanks to digital cameras and rapidly losing value, but for over 80 years the technology was basically the same).  But it&#8217;s more trouble than it&#8217;s worth to sell any of my old electronic devices.  They&#8217;re worth more to me to have them and play with them than the $10 I can make by selling them.  And that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so easy to collect them.  Nobody wants them, they&#8217;re useless to people now, and they just take up space.  And that&#8217;s about when they end up taking up my space instead of theirs, for little or no cost to myself.  <em>Initial<\/em> cost, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m convinced that computers make the worst monetary investment of a physical item in history, continually going obsolete and losing 95% of their value in just a few years. As a result, I&#8217;ve spent most of my money on things that are now near-worthless. This sort of situation is probably unique in the history of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-collecting","category-computer-collecting","category-technology-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}