SortStack #1235 — 2029-10-26

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A grande latte at Starbucks $4.50

   The coffee beans in a latte cost the chain well under fifty cents — milk, labor, and rent make up most of what you pay.

2. One month of Netflix's standard ad-free plan $18

   Netflix began in 1998 mailing DVDs in red envelopes — it shipped its final disc in 2023 after posting over five billion of them.

3. A new Ferrari 296 GTB $340K

   Ferrari deliberately limits production below demand — the company makes more profit per car than almost any automaker, and the waitlist is part of the product.

4. A banana duct-taped to a wall, the artwork 'Comedian' $6.2M

   The 2024 buyer, a crypto entrepreneur, ate the banana at a press conference. The artwork is really a certificate — owners get instructions for replacing the fruit.

5. 'Salvator Mundi,' the painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci $450.3M

   The most expensive artwork ever sold was bought for about $1,000 at a 2005 estate sale. Since the 2017 auction, it has not been publicly seen.

6. The entire Apollo Moon program, in the dollars of its day $25.4B

   At its peak, Apollo employed about 400,000 people and consumed more than 4% of the US federal budget — per landing, each Moon mission cost less than a modern aircraft carrier.

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