I really really really don't want to lose my faith in humanity because of this...
Oh, come on over, having no faith in humanity isn't that bad. Life's great when you are at peace with the knowledge that at least global warming will obliterate mankind now that we've managed to muck up nuclear annihilation by disarming.
Most people don't want to spend $500 or more for a phone. And the plans were outrageously priced. You could have had a nice sized LCD display in 2003 too, but it was quite expensive. You could have had a 20megabit fiber connection to the internet in 2003, it was very expensive.
You're confusing existence with commonality. Most people had none of those things three years ago, now you can get any of them for $100 or less.
Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer