Young people feel priced out, but most everyday goods are actually cheaper than they were a generation ago — the squeeze is concentrated in just a few big-ticket items.

• A review of typical household spending found only three categories cost more than they did for earlier generations; everything else got cheaper.
• Music is the clearest example: an album once cost around fifteen dollars, and a streaming subscription now costs less than that for a library of millions of songs.
• Entertainment and dating follow the same pattern, with a night out at the movies replaced by thousands of titles on demand for a flat monthly fee.
• Technology drove the drop in prices so quietly that the abundance it created now feels ordinary rather than remarkable.

Outlook: The affordability debate will keep centering on the few costs that did rise — housing, healthcare, and education — while cheap goods and digital services stay cheap.