They continue to change the economy and society, and by most accounts, including Moore's, the big changes have barely begun. Moore has seen remarkable change already. Radio was barely getting started when he was young. Now communications is moving into an age where we blend the telephone with every other medium every invented, with impacts no one can predict for certain. If exponential change infected the markets in a bad way, it remains a fact of life for technology.
Transistors are, for all practical purposes, free today.
Transistors, which once cost tens of dollars, now cost fractions of micro-dollars, he notes. One of these days or years, engineers will put a billion transistors on a chip. For practical purposes, individual transistors will then have no cost. Making technology more affordable means we use it in more and more places, and come up with entirely new ways of doing things. Microcontrollers now guide the workings of all kinds of everyday devices, and when we add brains to these things, we make them more efficient and reliable.