4 Technology Curves · 1956–2024 · 70 Years of Data

The Great Technology Deflation

1956 — 2024

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20M× cheaper storage18.7B× cheaper compute70 years of dataFaster than any industry
𝕏
Storage Collapse (1981–2024)
0.0000%
$300,000/GB → $0.015/GB
𝕏
Compute Cheaper (1984→2024)
0.0B×
$18.7M → $0.001 per GFLOP
𝕏
RAM Cost Reduction
0.000%
$100,000/GB → $3/GB since 1980
𝕏
Bandwidth Cheaper (1998→2024)
0×
$1,200/Mbps → $0.20/Mbps
💾 Storage — $300,000/GB in 1981 — now $0.015🖥️ Compute — $18.7M/GFLOP in 1984 — now $0.001🧠 RAM — $100,000/GB in 1980 — now $3🌐 Bandwidth — $1,200/Mbps in 1998 — now $0.20📉 Storage halved every 14 months — for 40 straight years🚀 iPhone 16 beats a $30M 1988 Cray supercomputer💡 IBM 1956 RAMAC — 5 MB total — $3,200/month to rent⚡ $1,000 of compute in 1984 = 0.00005 GFLOPS🔢 $1,000 of compute in 2024 = 1,000,000 GFLOPS🌍 Internet transit: 99.98% cheaper since 1998💻 AWS S3: $0.023/GB/month — was $640B/GB/month in 1956📊 Tech deflation: 10× faster than any other sector🔬 DRAM cost: factor of 10 reduction every 5 years, 1957–2020🛰️ Moore's Law: 60 years of relentless exponential progress💾 Storage — $300,000/GB in 1981 — now $0.015🖥️ Compute — $18.7M/GFLOP in 1984 — now $0.001🧠 RAM — $100,000/GB in 1980 — now $3🌐 Bandwidth — $1,200/Mbps in 1998 — now $0.20📉 Storage halved every 14 months — for 40 straight years🚀 iPhone 16 beats a $30M 1988 Cray supercomputer💡 IBM 1956 RAMAC — 5 MB total — $3,200/month to rent⚡ $1,000 of compute in 1984 = 0.00005 GFLOPS🔢 $1,000 of compute in 2024 = 1,000,000 GFLOPS🌍 Internet transit: 99.98% cheaper since 1998💻 AWS S3: $0.023/GB/month — was $640B/GB/month in 1956📊 Tech deflation: 10× faster than any other sector🔬 DRAM cost: factor of 10 reduction every 5 years, 1957–2020🛰️ Moore's Law: 60 years of relentless exponential progress

What $1,000 Buys — Then vs. Now

The same $1,000 buys incomprehensibly more computing power today. These numbers are order-of-magnitude differences, not percentages.

💾
Storage
per $1,000 spent
1981
0.003 GB GB
2000
100 GB GB
2024
66,667 GB GB
20,000,000×more for same price
🖥️
Compute
per $1,000 spent
1984
0.00005 GFLOPS GFLOPS
2000
1.56 GFLOPS GFLOPS
2024
1,000,000 GFLOPS GFLOPS
18,700,000,000×more for same price
🧠
RAM
per $1,000 spent
1980
0.01 GB GB
2000
10 GB GB
2024
333 GB GB
33,300×more for same price
🌐
Bandwidth
per $1,000 spent
1998
0.0008 Mbps Mbps/mo
2010
200 Mbps Mbps/mo
2024
5,000 Mbps Mbps/mo
6,000,000×more for same price

Storage Cost: 70 Years of Free Fall

From IBM's 1956 RAMAC at $10M/GB to today's $0.015/GB — a 660-million-fold collapse on a logarithmic scale.

Cost Per Gigabyte of Storage (1956–2024)
Logarithmic scale — each gridline represents a 1,000× price difference
Sources: mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte, jcmit.net/diskprice.htm, backblaze.com, ourworldindata.org

Compute Cost per GFLOP

Cost Per GFLOP (1984–2024)
From $18.7M to $0.001 — an 18.7 billion-fold collapse
Source: aiimpacts.org, humanprogress.org

RAM Cost per Gigabyte

DRAM Cost Per GB (1957–2024)
Factor of 10 reduction every 5 years for 60+ years
Source: aiimpacts.org/trends-in-dram-price-per-gigabyte, jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm

Internet Bandwidth Cost Collapse

Transit pricing fell from $1,200/Mbps/month in 1998 to $0.20 today — a 6,000× collapse that enabled the modern internet.

Internet Transit Cost Per Mbps (1998–2024)
Monthly cost per megabit — logarithmic scale
Source: drpeering.net, broadbandnow.com

What Cheap Bandwidth Made Possible

Napster launches
1998
$1,200/Mbps
YouTube launches
2005
$60/Mbps
Netflix streaming begins
2007
$25/Mbps
AWS S3 scales globally
2008
$12/Mbps
Video calls go mainstream
2010
$5/Mbps
500M Zoom calls/day
2020
$0.40/Mbps
AI inference at scale
2024
$0.20/Mbps

All Four Curves: The Great Deflation

Normalized to 100 in year 2000. Compute has collapsed by 640,000× since 2000 — steepest decline. All four curves tell the same story: technology gets better and cheaper at a pace no other industry matches.

Price Index (2000 = 100)
Logarithmic scale — how much cheaper each technology is relative to 2000
Sources: mkomo.com, aiimpacts.org, jcmit.net, drpeering.net — normalized to 2000 = 100

Why This Matters

📉
Faster Than Any Industry in History
Computing costs have fallen 10× every 5 years for 70 years. No other industry — not aviation, shipping, or medicine — comes close. A price collapse that would take a century elsewhere happens in a decade.
🚀
Your Phone Beats a 1990 Supercomputer
The Cray Y-MP supercomputer (1988) cost $30 million and delivered 2.7 GFLOPS. A 2024 iPhone 16 delivers ~15 GFLOPS. You carry a 1990s supercomputer in your pocket — for $999.
💡
Storage: From $10M to $0.015 per GB
IBM's 1956 RAMAC 305 stored 5 MB and rented for $3,200/month — $640/MB/month or about $640 billion per GB annually. Today, AWS S3 charges $0.023 per GB per month. That's a 28-trillion-fold price collapse.
⚡
The Internet Bandwidth Miracle
In 1998, a 1 Mbps internet circuit cost $1,200/month. That same dollar buys roughly 6,000 Mbps today. The collapse of bandwidth cost is what made streaming, video calls, and cloud computing possible.

Technology vs. Everything Else

How does the pace of technology deflation compare to other sectors over 40+ years?

SectorPrice ChangeValue ImprovementPeriod
💾 Hard Drive Storage−99.9999%20,000,000× cheaper1981–2024
🖥️ Compute (GFLOPS)−99.99999%18,700,000,000× cheaper1984–2024
🧠 DRAM (RAM)−99.997%33,000× cheaper1980–2024
🌐 Internet Bandwidth−99.98%6,000× cheaper1998–2024
✈️ Airline Tickets (inflation-adj.)−40%1.7× cheaper1980–2024
🚗 Car Fuel Efficiency+60% better1.6× cheaper1980–2024
🏥 Healthcare Costs+200%0.33× cheaper1980–2024
🏠 Housing Prices+400%0.20× cheaper1980–2024
More Dashboards
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The Cost of Computing
Sources: mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte, jcmit.net/diskprice.htm, aiimpacts.org, drpeering.net, ourworldindata.org, backblaze.com. Data represents best available estimates. Not financial advice.
@Trace_Cohent@nyvp.com