SortStack #1305 — 2030-01-04

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A Big Mac in the United States, on average $5.80

   The Economist's 'Big Mac Index' uses this burger's price worldwide as a playful gauge of whether currencies are over- or undervalued.

2. Manhattan Island, as the Dutch paid for it (in goods, at the famous valuation) $24

   The Dutch paid 60 guilders in trade goods in 1626 — a sum 19th-century historians famously converted to about $24. Manhattan real estate is now worth well over a trillion.

3. A new hardcover bestseller $30

   Hardcovers exist partly as price discrimination: publishers sell to eager fans at a premium first, then release the cheaper paperback a year later.

4. A pair of Apple AirPods Pro $249

   AirPods alone generate more revenue than Spotify, Twitter, and Shopify each did when analysts ran the comparison — earbuds as a Fortune 500-scale business.

5. The median home in San Francisco $1.3M

   San Francisco is only about 121 square kilometers — smaller than Walt Disney World in Florida — which helps explain the brutal housing math.

6. New Kim, the world's most expensive racing pigeon $1.9M

   A Chinese buyer won the 2020 auction for the Belgian hen. Pigeon racing's huge prize purses in China have turned top breeding birds into seven-figure assets.

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