Kind of. If you live in too rural of an area, sometimes you can't get an OTA television signals. Sometimes the same is true if you have tall buildings nearby or other obstructions nearby. And then even if you get a channel or two, you may not get all the major networks. And network television isn't what it used to be- a lot of sports and sporting events that used to be on "free television" have moved to cable, and many of the slots that used to go to sitcoms and dramas are now low-cost (to the television network) reality television fare that doesn't have quite as broad an appeal.
Really depends where you live, and a lot of people don't have much of a choice in that.
Well, maybe. I'd be interested to see a comprehensive study done of what things cost relative to household income level these days versus the old days. I don't know that everything is really as cheap now as it's perceived to be when all factors are considered.
The other thing is that businesses often use sophisticated advertising techniques (employing psychologists and focus groups and so on and so forth, and making it harder and harder to avoid advertising) to create demand for products, essentially almost brainwashing people to believe they need something, and then turn around and set the price higher than a lot of people can afford. People are whipped into this frenzy by advertisers of "Want, want, want", "Need, need, need", "Buy, buy, buy", and then have to deal with not having the money to satisfy the desires the makers of products have artificially created in them.
Why is Christmas music played in some stores beginning in September or October? It's not because the stores are in the holiday spirit, it's because they've done studies that show that when they put the Christmas displays out early and play the music, people spend more. And it becomes sort of a peer pressure thing. Now people are expected to get expensive Christmas gifts for more people than ever at a greater cost than ever or they're looked at as cheap. Businesses created that culture. The businesses create a materialistic culture and then turn around and blame consumers for being materialist.
It's hard to be satisfied with what you have because we're surrounded by advertising and other things that tell us in a million subtle and unsubtle ways that we can't be happy with less, and have to keep up with the Jones. And it's hard to opt-out of that.
Maybe products need to be cheaper because there are fewer jobs and we pay workers less when they can find work. The guy who founded Ford motor company used to take pride in paying his workers a good wage, and when asked about it, he'd say stuff along the lines of "If I didn't pay them a good wage, how would they be able to afford to buy my cars?". Companies move their factories to Mexico and pay their workers 50 cents an hour there, and don't pay a living wage to the workers they do still have here in the US (if any), and then wonder why the market is drying up for those $1,000 television sets back in the states.
