I paid a lot for my first computer. We all did back in the early days. That was a shock.
What was even more shocking was when I tried to sell my computer. After two years, I learned that my beloved, although used, TRS-80 Model III had no value.
Your technology investment is in using the device. Don’t expect to become rich by selling the thing on the used computer market. There is no used computer market!
Back in the 1980s, lots of business people were shocked to find out that their old computers had no value. Hello, accounting department? Accelerate those depreciation tables!
A business would pay up to $5,000 for a top-of-the-line PC system. They’d use it for a few years, and then buy a new system. They’d try to sell the old systems as they would any surplus equipment. Sound economics, paralleling the used car market, implied that a 2-year-old $5,000 PC could sell for, say, $2,000. I know this because I worked at a hometown computer magazine and we had a huge classified ad section. The “Used Computer” category was full of such offers.
Nothing moved.
That’s because for $2,000 you could get a new computer that was much better than the used model. In a culture where expensive things generally held value, such a concept made no sense. The “after two years it’s worthless” concept was a strange notion to businesses that would routinely sell old typewriters and get something for them.
This concept applies to today’s electronic junk as well.
The other day, I saw a photo of Steve Jobs introducing the first iPad. That was back in 2010. The 16GB model of the iPad One (or whatever it was called) sold for $499. Today, the current 16GB base model of the iPad (the iPad Air 2) sells for . . . $499.
How much do you think an original iPad model sells for used?
On eBay, around $50. And for that $50 you get an “old” device that runs an un-supported version of iOS. You can’t even use the Apple App Store.
But!
Hang on to that original iPad. If you wait 40 years, and the sucker still works, it might wind up being worth a lot more than $50 or even $500.
Recently, an original, working Apple I sold for $360,000. Granted, the Apple I has a lot of nostalgia around it. You don’t see that kind of dough going for an original TRS-80 Model I or even the original IBM PC, the 5150 model. But in 40 years, who knows?
