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this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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As it happens, actually I was buying batteries in the 1970's. They were massive and lasted plenty long enough to play audio cassettes for several days.
Edit: I'd also point out that three decades is 1996, not 1976, that's five decades.
Nonono that is outright false, even 6 of the big D batteries, would last only a few hours in even a small ghetto blaster of the late 70's. Radio yes, tape no. The tapes took massive amounts of power even in a small player for the time.
But apart from that all other uses of batteries were a pain, like in flashlights that weren't even very good by today's standards, or bicycle lights where batteries were a joke so we had to use dynamos.
Your memory is simply wrong. IDK if they have declined 99%, but for sure batteries today are both 10 times better and only a tenth the price compared to the 70's.
Although they are just fake numbers that seem right, it actually fits with the 99%
Althoug 3 decades only brings us back to the mid 90's, I think that at least in some cases it is true.
Batteries are way cheaper and better now, whether it's 80% or 99% IDK, but for sure iẗ́s more than 80%.
Having had a mono radio cassette player in my bedroom in 1976, running off D-cells, that was not my experience.
The biggest drain was the volume, not the cassette player. You noticed it getting slower and slower, but the drain came from playing it loud.
My Sony Walkman a few years later ran forever on its batteries.
Batteries are better, but not by that much, assuming you stick with the same technology - don't compare alkaline to lithium or something. Efficiency of electronics is much better. The improvement in flashlights is about LEDs
Modern batteries are way way better than they used to be, even alkaline is better and were quite expensive in the 90's.
But it's not only how much better they are, it's the prices, alkaline is standard today, and you barely even look at the price, because they are dirt cheap.
But you are right that in electronics there have been much improvements, a modern flashlight is easily a 100 times better because of both LED and better batteries. LED improved it probably by a factor of about 10.
But for many things like a laptop, the power consumption hasn't gone down that much, because the better batteries have actually made it possible to make more powerful laptops instead. the power consumption of a modest laptop CPU alone id 65 Watt, which would be HUGE in the 80's.
I agree the 99% sounds like much, but I can attest to at least 80% probably more like 90% better batteries than the early 90's.
Lithium batteries really was a game-changer, especially if you consider only rechargeable batteries.