Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

There are so many experiences to have in life, you would think that people with a lot of wealth would have many of them.

But, as this article points out, it's easy to trap yourself with the things you like. Like fishing? You buy a huge boat. Like flying? You spend millions on a cool plane. Like scenery? You buy several houses.

Pretty soon, all your time and energy goes into the things you own. Or, as people say, the things own you instead of you owning the things. John puts it very well: you can only live in one place at a time.

Once my startups begin to mature, I plan on renting just about everything. That way I can try many different things without the pain of ownership. If I find myself doing something over and over again -- and it would have to be dozens of times -- I might consider buying something permanently. Maybe.

Concentrate on experiences, not possessions (or money)

EDIT: I heard somebody refer to what happened as a "luxury consumption trap." Just wanted to add that nothing about this has anything to do with the amount of money involved. This is more about your relationship to the things you own, however much they might cost. You can tie yourself up with five dollar items as easily as you can five million-dollar items. (It's true, however, that people seem especially blind about this when this happens with larger-ticket items.)

I can't agree enough. I used to buy toys all the time (you know, exotic workstations on different architectures, fancy PDAs and so on, you probably know the drill) and realised after a while that I had a whole load of few year old tech that I never really used. These days I cut back. The only thing I really spend money on is travel, accommodation and food. Possessions only tend to stick around for short periods of time. Experiences stay with you forever. I don't think I've ever met anyone who on their deathbed was likely to say, "I wish I had more stuff"

"Possessions only tend to stick around for short periods of time. Experiences stay with you forever."

Absolutely.

My parents bought me lots of presents for birthdays and Christmas.

When I was about 12 they took me to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I played that sucker hard that day.

I don't remember any of the presents. I still remember that day. I'm over 50.

Think about that, when you want to do something for your kids, or your spouse. Or yourself.

So true.

I hate to be "that" guy, but:

The things you own end up owning you.

Tyler Durden - Fight Club

Just came here to mention the article says he is "down to" $10 million.

I understand he nearly lost "everything," but boy would I love to lose everything and be down to "just" $10 mil.

Re: the edit (since that was me), I do think the luxury-consumption trap is qualitatively different, and one that applies to both experiences and stuff. Some of it does overlap with the general being-owned-by-things problem, which can be a problem at various levels of spending. But there's a different kind of paralysis that can come from "now I'm rich, I can do rich people stuff!". For some people that's great, but for other people it leads to them doing what they think $100m-net-worth people should be doing, whether that's yacht purchases or globe-hopping or $200/plate restaurants, even if they personally would be happier coding, starting businesses, or eating burgers.

At least, it doesn't seem too uncommon for people in tech who had successful exits to live a high-spending retire-in-luxury lifestyle for 2-3 years, then "burn out" on that in one way or another.

Perhaps this is related to having some sense of value just in the amount of money involved?

Many folks won't think twice of spending a hundred hours or more each year managing a property they rarely use because of the value of the property. Whereas if they spent that same amount of time worrying over something inexpensive? It would either be considered a hobby -- done exclusively for the experience -- or a sign of some sort of OCD.

I have been very fortunate in my life to have gone many times between having lots of extra cash and having to scrimp and save. I found it took several such cycles for me to finally "get it" For a long time, when I was flush I would buy things. A top-of-the line computer each year. A vehicle that I paid to have refurbished to my specifications. A large piece of land for an office. And so on. One day I woke up, looked around, and thought just what is the purpose of all of this? Owning things gave me a sense of security, and perhaps a sense of social collateral, but the trade-off just wasn't worth it. If you want security, it's better just to have cash in the bank. If you want to socially signal with your possessions, I'd advise making enough to first pay somebody else to manage all of it before you load up. Or better yet, just do long-term leasing and have maintenance and such be completely hands-off from your end. Assuming you have the money, the buying is the easy part.

We all live on some spectrum of consumer vs. producer. Some entrepreneurs (classic producers) never stop being primarily producers. Those are the people who remain frugal and are indifferent about their fortunes. Others fall toward the consumer end of the spectrum, and sometimes lose their way.

I think it's universally true that producing is always better than consuming, but perhaps someone will refute that point convincingly.

I totally agree with you. To me the producer is already doing what they enjoy doing, the financial gains are a side effect, and will pretty much just be used as funding to buy what's needed for them to keep producing. Would be like someone who enjoys running a business, the money is a part of it, but not the only goal, it blurs the line between hobby and work. The consumer spends their time consuming, the side effect of that is waste, once the consumption is over, the thrill is gone, the usefulness, if there was any, runs dry, it's tossed aside, as something new needs to be consumed.

There are things I want, that are not needed for my survival, but they are things I actually enjoy having, they serve some constructive purpose. I don't understand buying stuff just to buy stuff, just to have a new car, or just to have the latest version, it doesn't make sense. I think that is where some people that come into lots of money go wrong, spending it becomes their hobby, with out a job you got a lot of free time to keep yourself entertained. Producers would seem to inherently have the ability to deal with that free time in a much more fiscally responsible manor.

For society:

Society rewards production better than consumption.

Yet, when you think about it, when no one consumes, the value of production becomes zero, too.

Perhaps my initial sentence should be changed to: Consumers reward producers.

They're like a pair of chopsticks.

For individuals:

One could argue that when possible, consuming is always better than producing. You're swapping pieces of paper for real goods and services!

We're sort of fortunate that programming counts as "production" while playing computer games count as "consumption", and we're more interested in the former than the latter. I see it as just how the world works; "Fate" if you will. (I'm not religious, though).

EDIT: I save as much as possible and program lots, while my brother spends almost every dollar of his paycheck. So I'm biased.

We are very consumer based, at some level even the producers are just consumers, that use what they consume to create something else for someone else to consume usually. I would say that is just part of our way of living, in a society of people. The only way for us to have no consumers, is if we are all self sustaining, hunter gatherers really.

Perhaps at one point our species was consumerless, but the fact is, we work way better in a group, which means there will be consumers. I like turning steel into usable objects, I don't like mining it, there for I must be a consumer at some level. If I was forced to produce everything I needed to build something complex, like say a PCB board and components, it would take a life time to get everything necessary to produce something not all that spectacular.

I think the "bad" part of consumerism, is more a psychological state, like using drugs to escape a problem. Consuming on its own, isn't necessarily bad and you're right, very necessary. Perhaps its all psychologically based, I feel better building something, more than I do just waiting around for the next movie, or video game to distract me from my life. But really, whats the difference if what I produced just ends up sitting in the corner collecting dust, why I'm building something else?

In that sense, being a Producer, requires a Consumer, someone else to find what you have made useful. Otherwise all I've been is a consumer. Producing at worst, is a consumer, at best, helping make society a better place. Consumer at best is a Producer, at worst, just collecting, and creating a market, for junk to be eventually thrown away.

You make a great point in general, but especially about gaming. It's not hard to imagine a world where "gamification" eventually leads to productive outlets that appear to be "games". In fact, we already have this in crude forms all over the place, e.g., bonuses and promotions in the corporate and military context. That's where the lines get very blurry.

I really like your point about production being useless without consumers, but I suspect that there will never be a shortage of consumers.

I splurge too much on food. Everything else is either saved or invested.

I am a 20 years old who have it better than most. While everyone is accumulating debt, I am learning tons on the job while sailing by with a modest start in saving and really lucky investment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com