Then and Now

I know we were admonished to not concern ourselves with how it was then and how it is now, but sometimes we need to go back to "then" to appreciate "now"
NOW: A few days ago, you young fellow sent me an mp3 of his music he was working on and asked for an appraisal of it. The songs were fairly decent and the sound quality was very good.
I told him as much. He also mentioned that he recorded them at home on his computer.
THEN: Years ago, my first recordings were done on tape in a very expensive Hollywood, CA studio. Due to the cost, we got a mediocre engineer, rushed through recording to save hourly costs, then had to have it pressed to vinyl...another major expense. All told, it cost us about $5,000 US dollars in 1981 to cut one single 45rpm record that sounded like crap.
I think our old lead singer still has a box of those 45's collecting dust in his basement.
That is the same amount of money it cost me to initially set up my present day studio and I record people and bands everyday, mix then bounce to CD.
I have made back my start up costs many times over, plus it keeps me on the front lines of the latest trends and music.