SortStack #1809 — 2031-05-23

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A PlayStation 5 console $500

   The PS5 sold out so fast at launch during the pandemic that scalper bots became a news story — resale prices briefly doubled the sticker.

2. An average American funeral with burial $8K

   The funeral industry's pricing was so opaque that US law now requires itemized price lists — caskets alone often carry markups of several hundred percent.

3. Dennis Tito's trip to the International Space Station as the first space tourist $20M

   NASA objected so strongly to the 2001 visit that Tito trained in Russia and flew on a Soyuz — NASA staff were initially told not to assist him.

4. A Sixties Ferrari 250 GTO sold at auction $48.4M

   Only 36 were built, and the owners' club is so exclusive that some sales are vetted. Private GTO deals have reportedly topped even the public auction record.

5. Pixar, when Disney bought it $7.4B

   The 2006 deal made Steve Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder — he had bought Pixar from George Lucas two decades earlier for about $10 million.

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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