The shift key is pretty fucking cheap.
The cheapest individual resistors or capacitors can be less than $0.005 (half a penny) each if bought in bulk. You can easily buy one at a time, but then the price goes up to about a penny each. Of course the postage would be much more than the price so while there are plenty of times when you use only one, it makes sense to buy them a few hundred at a time.
I certainly do use one transistor for many things, though if they’re the really cheap ones I’d normally buy at least a half dozen at a time. But there are specialty or power transistors that are around $150, if I’m replacing one of those I’m not buying any more than I have to.
“Common sense” does, though. Also the definition of “thing” … OP gave the example of buying something… he wants to buy one…
Good clarification. You can certainly buy a single transistor, but the price will be a universe away from the numbers in the link lisiate provided.
Barring a city-wide kidney ailment, probably.
I say it is a rubber band, my pal says a paper clip, another person says a postage stamp…other choices are straight pin, thumbtack, bb, penny and brass washer
Some quick and dirty searching says in that group, the bb is the cheapest.
Universal #1 Smooth Paper Clips $0.21 per box of 100 = $0.0021 each
Francoise Postage Stamp Stickers - Set of 80 $1.80 = $0.0225 each
Straight Pins - 24 packs of 1000 for $46.79 = $0.00194 each
Thumb Tacks - box of 100 pieces $0.60 = $0.0060 each
Crosman Copperhead BBs, 6000 count - $7.99 = 0.00133 each
Brass Flat Washer Small 1/8 Id 5/16 Od 1/32 Thick Qty 50 $4.50 = $0.09 each
Mud pie. 30 seconds of labor; abundant raw materials.
How about a Back-scratcher? Design has very loose tolerances, can be made from almost any rigid material. I have a theory that the back-scratchier was the first handheld tool ever used by the first quadruped that evolved a prehensile hand.
Straight pins are lowest on Ornery Bob’s list. Let’s see if I can get a number for toothpicks.
Darn it. Google wants to rhapsodize about the history of toothpick manyfacture. But you can buy 4X800 boxes on Amazon for $3.15. That’s 3200 for $3.15 or 0.000984 each. Unless they’re being sold at a loss, the actual cost of manufacture would be below that.
I think the toothpick wins.
A baby
Free to make, expensive to maintain.
we have a winnah!!!