Up until about 2015 it felt like hardware was always getting cheaper. Then something happened and hardware stopped getting cheaper every year. Adjusted for inflation a mid-range laptop or desktop costs me much more today than it did back then. Yes, it has better specs but it needs it to make up for the extra bloat of all applications.

Given DRAM, CPU, GPU, and SSD shortages it does not seem hardware will become cheaper in the short term. Do you think it will ever go back to how it was ten years ago or is this the new normal?