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Pay Too Much for everything

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Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#121

Post by tchock23 »

I agree with most of the ideas in this article with the small exception of the example he gives for services and hiring "the best firm in the country." I think you're mostly paying for overhead and bloat in those cases, and I would prefer to work with "the guy down the street" if I can (in which case I'd want to find the best "guy down the street," regardless of cost).

Other than that, it amazes me how people won't spend for quality in situations where it clearly is in their best interest for the long-term...

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#122

Post by KC8ZKF »

spenczar5 wrote: post #111
KC8ZKF wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is at least some evidence that an expensive bottle of wine tastes better because it's expensive. When the cost of the wine is unknown to the taster, the differences disappear.[1] And, when a wine is presented to the taster as expensive it is perceived as better than cheaper wines even when it is the same wine. [2] [1] http://www.wine-economics.org/journal/content/Volume3/number... [2] http://scienceblogs.com/co…

Your first article, at least, comes with a strong caveat: "We find that, unless they are experts , individuals who are unaware of the price enjoy more expensive wines slightly less." (emphasis added)

If you and I were to get together and agree on a certain aesthetic, and then we were to declare people who agreed with our aesthetic "experts", and then we were to test random people against our set of experts, our experts would agree with our aesthetic more often than the others.

That says nothing about peoples enjoyment. If people, experts or not, enjoy expensive wine more than inexpensive wine, they still enjoy it more even if their reasoning is flawed.

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#124

Post by [deleted] »

drostie wrote: post #56

One key way in which the article is right on-the-money, so to speak, is to highlight the ridiculous frenzy that we go into to save disproportionately small amounts of money. Our audience here is mostly programmers. Programmers should all know the golden rule of optimization: profile it first . Don't take it on intuition or faith that "this is what was slowing me down" unless you've measured it. The same principle app…

[deleted]

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#125

Post by [deleted] »

drostie wrote: post #56

One key way in which the article is right on-the-money, so to speak, is to highlight the ridiculous frenzy that we go into to save disproportionately small amounts of money. Our audience here is mostly programmers. Programmers should all know the golden rule of optimization: profile it first . Don't take it on intuition or faith that "this is what was slowing me down" unless you've measured it. The same principle app…

[deleted]

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#126

Post by sireat »

genwin wrote: post #83
megablast wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying too much for something works if you have no idea how to actually judge the quality of the item. I know computers and bikes, and will not pay too much for those thing, because I know the quality and I know the cost. I have no idea about cars, or houses, or shoes, so I have not way of judging the quality of these items.

If you'll ever buy a car or house you should know their quality; you can rely on the judgment of others for that. For cars it's usually easy: Japanese or Hyundai. Car magazines rate their quality. For houses, it's generally ones from 1960 to 1980. An inspector can judge the quality of a house.

Interestingly enough Hyundai were quite horrible up to the late 1990s.

"Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW" was quite an insult, when Glengarry Glen Ross came out.

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#127

Post by undergroundhero »

schiffern wrote: post #115
denzil_correa wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're actually agreeing with the author without realizing it. Why? Because you decided to buy X because it was valued at a certain price and you could afford it. You didn't buy a "cheap" (in quality) version of the product (since you did your research). Unknowingly you are agreeing with the author. :-)

Except the author is arguing that you should use "expensive" as a heuristic (instead of "cheap"). wccrawford is arguing that quality is orthogonal to price.

No, he's not.

This doesn’t always work. Sometimes a cheaper product is actually better. But consider removing price as the default decision criteria.

He's advising you to stop buying the cheapest available, not to buy the most expensive available.

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#128

Post by TeMPOraL »

denzil_correa wrote: post #102
hythloday wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this relevant? If I get £50 off a house purchase and then tip the next waiter I meet £50 on a £50 meal, I'm no better off but the waiter will be ecstatic and the house-seller probably not more morose. The percentages are not terribly relevant to happiness , which is not well-correlated with money saved--see Dickens for more details. :)

My point was you save more for on $0.50 on a meal than a $5 on a car. In terms of pure monetary value, it is relevant. This comment was more in the light of an "alternate" theory as the author doesn't appreciate the fact that people haggle over $0.50 on a tip.

In terms of pure monetary value it is irrelevant, actually. Yes, $0.50 is much more a saving relative to meal price than car price, but it's still $0.50, aka. insignificant amount of money, usually not worth the time it takes to argue for it.

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#129

Post by dredmorbius »

baseh wrote: post #94
dredmorbius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best meals I've ever had were generally cooked by me or someone I know personally, and were shared with good friends or family. An outdoor BBQ 20 years ago. Christmas dinners. Camp meals backpacking. Mom's home cooking after workouts as a kid. Picnics out of doors. I can think of maybe two or three restaurant meals that were memorable. The best of these a long long time ago with a girl I was very fond of, in a sm…

I agree eating with people you love makes all the difference

This includes, occasionally, eating alone, if you love the right people.

Re: Pay Too Much for everything

#130

Post by spenczar5 »

KC8ZKF wrote: post #122
spenczar5 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first article, at least, comes with a strong caveat: "We find that, unless they are experts , individuals who are unaware of the price enjoy more expensive wines slightly less." (emphasis added)

If you and I were to get together and agree on a certain aesthetic, and then we were to declare people who agreed with our aesthetic "experts", and then we were to test random people against our set of experts, our experts would agree with our aesthetic more often than the others. That says nothing about peoples enjoyment. If people, experts or not, enjoy expensive wine more than inexpensive wine, they still enjoy it…

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You seemed to originally be claiming that there isn't an appreciable aesthetic difference between cheap wine and expensive wine, and that all wine is basically the same when you don't think about price ("When the cost of the wine is unknown to the taster, the differences disappear.")

But the article you provided seems to say that there is a difference between cheap and expensive wine - it's just that most people are not good enough to detect it. I think this is important because it invalidates the claim that "all wine is indistinguishable." There's a difference, it's just hard to detect, and the pros are better at it.

To return to the original point of the thread, though, wine actually is a pretty interesting example that complicates the original poster's point. The more you wine you drink, the more important it is to pay extra. It's not that the expensive stuff isn't better, it's just that you have to care a whole lot to appreciate the difference, so most people actually will be fine just getting relatively cheap wine.

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