The Diderot Effect: Shopping One's Way to Financial Misery
businessmellow.wordpress.com
businessmellow.wordpress.com
Once one gets something nice, you're trying to maintain parity between that part of your life, compared to the other parts of your life, and you're willing to spend moeny to do so.
From C.S. Lewis:
"The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favor of the “best” people, the “right” food, the “important” books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions."
If you really like something, with a strong sense of self, you stop caring about how all your stuff matches together.
The book is in the public domain.
Another point which I think is interesting from the original article is social status signaling. Every city does it slightly differently.
For instance, in the Bay Area, you signal social status by talking about the hot startups you founded, the companies you worked for, and the open source projects you contribute to.
In LA, you signal by the kind of car you drive, the famous people you know, and the kind of clothes you wear (I know, I'm generalizing).
People who move from one area to the other have a harder time making friends, getting jobs, and getting dates cause the signals they send off are all wrong from what others are expecting.
But I know I don't have this problem because my credit card company immediately blocked the transaction and called me to make sure it was me because it was "not in line with my previous purchase history."
If I keep it up, something tells me they won't call back to warn me I might be succumbing to the Diderot effect. Hmm. Funny how that works.
Got a new laptop for work, but now my home desktop feels a bit slow by comparison...
When I got my current job (and matching salary bump) I built a new PC. It had been 4 or 5 years since I built the last one and that one was assembled on something of a budget. With the raise, I decided to go (for me) more high-end because I wanted to celebrate my raise in a way that wouldn't really break the bank if I later decided it was maybe a bit foolish.
So instead of my usual ~$800 budget for something that could handle all of the "boring" daily stuff like web browsing, email, and file storage as well as give a nice boost to rendering times when playing around with video, graphics, and animation projects, I spent around $1500. Incidentally, it would also be great for games so that covered all the bases for my computer uses.
It's been less than 4 years since I built that PC and I occasionally consider an upgrade but I like to force myself to no less than 5 years between "elective" upgrades. The PC is running smoothly. I don't have any real bottlenecks outside the stuff you can't avoid without spending several thousands of dollars (oh, boo-hoo, I have to play games at 2560x1440 even though the TV/monitor is 4K native).
The incremental updates of processor generations and RAM speeds are certainly nice but since I also suffer from this Diderot Effect, I like to do new PC builds with all new parts to take advantage of all the improvements of the past 5+ years.
I think on some level, I just like to occasionally take stock of the current state of the art and put together a parts list, do the assembly, and feel the satisfaction of a nice, clean setup that is running faster than the last thing. So instead I just offer to build for friends when they are in need of an upgrade. I still get to enjoy the hobbyist aspect and even though I don't typically charge for the effort, they always leave me with a case of good beer or a bottle of some nice Scotch.
I understand what you mean. I had waay more fun building my PC than using it. Once it was all done and I had Windows 10 installed I had nothing else to do and it was just sitting there. Let's just say that I was underwhelmed with the final outcome, especially since I don't game much these days due to time constraints.
I am thinking of getting a new case later this year and installing an aftermarket cooler because this is the one thing I never got to do for my current build, but oh boy the boredom afterwards :(
I would definitely be down to build a PC for anybody who was interested - no charge. The work would be its own reward for me.
But yea, it is impossible to chase that high you get when putting together a parts list perpetually as building rigs is an expensive hobby.
Still, a few months later it's like "hey, so there's sometimes this "ticking" sound in the back of the PC. I think it's the power supply but I'm not sure."
"OK, well see if you can blow some canned air in there in case some bit of plastic or paper got sucked in."
"No, it's not that."
"OK, well if it's defective, I still have the receipts so you can RMA it."
"Nah, that's too much of a hassle. I'll just order one. When can you swap it out?"
Then I proceed to realize that he has no interest in doing this and I have no free weekends to spend taking apart this PC and rebuilding it with another PSU. It's one reason why small-time PC building businesses have always been tough to run and why I never bothered to do it professionally. Any time something is not working, I'll fix my own setup but when you build something as a favor, it becomes your responsibility for life :/
Personally, I spend ridiculous amounts of money on things that are important to me, while spending virtually nothing on items that I must have but do not care about. However, I also err for quality over quantity.
What this describes is some sort of effect where everything in your life, by my standards, becomes important.
Example: I own $500+ headphones, $2000+ in computer gear (computers, laptops, monitors). I own a middle of the road phone (Nexus 5). I don't really upgrade my computer, and replace it when it finally starts breaking down, so, about every 6 to 8 years, which then I build another massively overkill machine. It generally takes an average mid-tier computer all of those years to catch up to mine. GPUs are the exception, and I used to upgrade those every 2 years until everyone got stuck at 28nm; I've been stuck on a 7970 for awhile, due to nothing really worth upgrading until later this year (Geforce 1000 series just came out, Polaris family Radeons in another 2-3 months), and I don't even game like I used to, so I may just keep the 7970.
I own clothes I bought from Walmart that I replace every 3-5 years, the grand total of nice clothes I own is two shirts and two pairs of pants, that I bought on sale at JC Penney, and spent about $120 on, and I hardly ever wear them.
I own a 7 year old 42" TV that I hardly watch, but has good enough visual quality that the final generation of 1080p TVs are hardly different (better blacks than anything else). The higher end 4k TVs ($1k+) are clearly better, but I won't buy a new TV until a) mine actually dies, b) tomorrow's $500 4k TVs look as good as today's $1k+ ones. This is assuming I even bother keeping a TV. I do not own a game console.
I do not own speakers. I own extremely small library of Blurays that I am considering selling. I hardly watch them. I own a $150 all in one printer. Some of the furniture I own is as old as I am, or maybe older, and was left to me when my mother passed away, it is solid wood and in good condition (all the damage done to it, I did personally as a kid).
I own Victorinox Fibrox knives, but only four, only the ones I use (chef's, mini granton-edge santoku, carving, boning), not a useless "complete set". I do not expect to ever have to replace these, and I own a fine enough synthetic wetstone to sharpen them myself, and generally keep them sharper than factory sharp.
I own a single 10" Lodge frying pan, a 12" pan, 8" pan, and 4 quart saucepan Mauviel M150S, usually insanely expensive (the 4 quart usually goes for $360), picked up at a tiny fraction from a chef supply store dumping their discontinued stock on Amazon. These, too, will last forever. I put more mileage on my Lodge than I do on the rest.
I own a pair of normally $150 running shoes that I picked up for $60 that I absolutely adore and try to treat well. I put about 5 miles into them every day, so they probably will last 2 years at the absolute very most.
I don't eat out. I cook my own food, and aim for nutrition and flavor over weird exoticness. I don't buy premade food generally, I avoid refined sugars, grains, and non-foods ("junk food") frequently sold in stores. I aim for foods that are in season or simply on sale this week, and then stock up and freeze stuff. Bulk packages get turned into meal sized blobs frozen in good freezer bags (never get the cheap shitty ones, good bags hinder freezer burn).
I don't own a car, yet I live in an area that you need a car. I am considered low income for an area that it itself is considered low income. Although, the irony, is I own a business, but I put my business before myself and pay myself very little; I pay myself what I need to, not what I want to.
So, I don't know. Maybe I do understand this, maybe I don't. I generally buy the best of something that meets my needs and is not too grossly overkill (I like products that can grow with me) (my main computer is the exception to this rule: overkill is best kill), and then own it as long as possible. I am a staunch believer in the Buy It For Life movement. I do not Keep Up With The Joneses. Their life is theirs, and I do not live their life, instead, I live mine.
So, I don't know. I almost want to interpret the article as simply not being an adult (not that I'm claiming I'm an adult, I'm only 33, too young to be one of those yet), and letting childhood insecurities grab ahold of them and take them for a ride. I don't resonate with that behavior.
don't running shoes last about 300-500 miles? If you're running 5 miles a day you're probably going to want to replace them in 4 months
Why We Want Things We Don’t Need — And What to Do About It.
You may check it out here [1].
But seriously, do people really buy new watches to match their new cars? New wardrobes to match a new pair of jeans? I never even knew this was a phenomenon. Definitely first-world problems.