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Comment by wredcoll | Hacker News Reader

> The price of the median purchased TV in 1997 was ~$4000, in nominal (1997) dollars

I'm sorry, what? How does this pass the sniff test? Are you saying people spent four thousand 1997 dollars for a tv? Or the equivalent of $4000 of 2026 dollars? Either way, that is extremely high and 1997 was not that long ago.

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Nominal dollars refers to the sticker price, in dollars at the time. 1997 was thirty years ago. TVs back then were a large ticket item!

Yes people spent that much for a TV in 1997.

Not as a median, they didn't.

Right? I was there. My family had a tv. We didn't not spend the equivalent price of a honda civic on it.

You can't get a Honda Civic for $4k now. And you couldn't get one for $1.9k in 1997 equivalent dollars[0]. Perhaps you're thinking second hand. And forget that a 35" Sony CRT-TV was $3.8k in 1997 (2x average sale), or a 42" plasma was $23k (more than 12x average sale). Not everyone bought/replaced a TV around the time.. continued with their 25" 1992 screen.. and they were smart if they survived until ~2005 when prices drastically shifted.

[0]: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2026?endYear=1997...

I'd like to present a newspaper insert from Circuit City in 1997 that advertised the televisions they offered: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025051358/https://i.ebayimg...

Front page at https://web.archive.org/web/20261025052016/https://i.ebayimg...

A 35-inch Sony TV was $1.4k, or ~$2.9k today.

25-inch GE sets were $219, or ~$458 today.

And the original comment was the "median price of $4k".

Yep. And to be justifiably curt: It's fucking bullshit.

At best, it's deliberately manipulative. At worst, it's a pack of lies.

The median bullshit quotient here is: Festering.

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