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Comment by plutoh28 | Hacker News Reader

I think you’ve misunderstood the point by seeing it through a purely practical perspective.

The point is that the most treasured and memorable things in life are products of great effort. You can have a ready to eat meal but there’s also some value in learning how to cook and eating something that you yourself made. Sometimes a ready to eat meal is the only option, but limiting yourself to ready to eat meals for the rest of your life (for their practicality) is a very bland way to enjoy your ability to eat.

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The point of these dating apps is to make it much quicker to meet a potential long-term match, and thousands of people then end up marrying that someone after putting in the effort. I think as person who's used these apps can attest, finding someone who's a good long-term fit and then establishing a relationship is still a great deal of effort even with these apps.

I think that's the point being made. Those that put in effort will get something out of Tinder etc., but the bar of entry is so low that the high effort user base gets diluted and makes using the service less rewarding for other high effort users.

Even if you achieve the exact same outcome (e.g., you buy a well-made omelette from an eat-in restaurant, versus learning to make a good omelette by yourself), it's more satisfying when you've done it through your own effort. It's for similar reasons that food tastes better when you're very hungry. I think there's an element of scarcity, sometimes being a little uncomfortable, that makes it satisfying, or else you won't notice the contrast between having something and not having it.

It’s absolutely not more satisfying. This is not shared across people like some sort of natural way of being. There are plenty of things I can learn how to make but can’t be fucked because I’ll never find satisfaction in doing so. Cooking is a great one, I can cook quite well but I still hate doing it. Just because I can make something well, it doesn’t give me any extra satisfaction. I’d still rather buy a good spaghetti than make and I surely enjoy one I didn’t cook more because I didn’t have to do shit.

I hadn't considered that not everyone would agree with what I said; thanks for telling me what you think.

My understanding is that much research does, in fact, show that it's more satisfying. Kids enjoy food more (eg, are less picky) when they've contributed to making it. People tend to value their own, lower-quality artwork than someone else's higher-quality work because they themselves put the effort into making it (and have some emotional connection to it).

I want to say I first heard of this finding through Jonathan Haidt or Daniel Gilbert, but a cursory search doesn't bring up the study.

This sounds like a common myth and not fact. I’d be happy to read research but I’m not going to bother myself because I 1) doubt very much it exists, 2) doubt that it’s remotely conclusive or good.

The point is more general than cooking. Clearly if you hate cooking, it's going to negatively affect how you feel about your efforts cooking. But the point still stands. Putting in effort to achieve something you want will very likely make you value it more. I built a new shower in my master bathroom - it's easily my favorite shower now because I made it. I built a road bike from individual parts, and it's my favorite bike, even though it's heavier and uglier than other bikes. I raise my kids every day, and I value them more than other kids, etc...

You’re missing my point entirely. It doesn’t. Thats what I’m saying there are plenty of things I can do, or learn to do, that I still hate. It doesn’t give me more value learning to do it myself because I just don’t care about somethings. It’s assumed and incorrectly so that this is some sort of shared natural way of being.

There is the famous case of Betty Crocker's cake mix. They found that buyers were happier if they had to do a little work, so they made the recipe more onerous!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inside-the-box/20140...

That's an interesting thing to learn; thanks for sharing it.

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