What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)

Hum, that's fair points but don't contradicts OP's arguments:

1. OP finds it "much more pleasant to use" which I believe includes the aesthetic side. "your modern appartement" is your take, but is it? and how old modern? There's an universe of different styles that have been implemented in the past, in a multi dimensional sense: it may be influenced by the state of the art of that time (available tools, wood...), the vogue (not necessarily correlated with state of the art) and the context (unique fancy piece for someone wealthy that paid for, unique simple piece for your family, small series by a semi industrial workshop).

2. True, however your old chipwood furniture may not be newish enough for the next householder so A. he/you needs to ditch it B. buy a new one. With a quality furniture you often can re-sell it at almost the same price you bought it, there's no devaluation but only a seller commission if you don't want to bother.

3. I have in front of me a drawer that was build by the gran-gran-gran-pa (yes!) of my wife and... drawers are drawers. Same for stools, bed or tables. I understand your point as there's usages that are lost like furniture-like-clock but some others weird stuff still come back every time because they actually are clever [0]

4. I'm not sure what you're talking about: integrated kitchen (and so) are made to fill a certain room, not the wooden furniture I'm familiar with that you can literally place where you want. New place and not enough space ? Sell it (the the new owner or someone else) and buy another one that fits better. You hardly sell a cheapwood furniture. Moreover, moving to new places have other drawbacks to deal with that you take into account when making the decision. I'm not arguing you sloudn't move, but it's a process that isn't always trivial. For exemple many US residents won't be able to bring their tank-car aboard for legal and/or practical reasons. Or their digged swimming pool. Or whatever if they move to inner Tokyo.

TV => The image quality is wined by the news devices image, however ss you mention "expensive things" I'd like to point out a B&W tv is probably way cheaper and robust that and the 4K OLED one. But there's room for choices in-between, and I a agree the argumentation works better with furniture than electronics.

CAT scratch => That's the beauty of the made-to-last furniture: Wood ? sand it, a bit of varnish and you're done. Fabric ? tear off the piece and nail a new one. They're not museum pieces but day-to-day home helpers.

[0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confident_(siège)

> In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt.

This is so strangely true.

I arranged a dad's dinner once, and we had a drug dealer there. Stereotypical hard man, wife dressed in branded clothes, fancy car, very obviously not in the line of business that he pretended. Trying extremely hard to flash how he used the private airport.

Seated with him was an actual billionaire, one whose family made their money a while back so you wouldn't know if you hadn't come across it before, like me. This guy just behaved like a normal middle class dad. Dressed like everyone else, ordinary SUV. No flashy moves.

Other two I know in that class are also just ordinary. No supercar, just a Merc or upper end car. They send their kids to private schools that ordinary top 5% people can afford, but no big arm movements.

You go to IKEA!

Not sure why the fixation with Ikea, they provide decent value at given price point (as in better than competition, but still within their cost band).

Anyway one prime example I can see - we have rather bigger kitchen, and storage is its prime function. Anything below waist needs to have pullout drawers, its supremely more practical and simply more efficient for storage. You don't need to go on your knees every time you need something deeper in bottom one. For older folks this is an absolute must. Good luck finding any older kitchen that has that. Same for any drawers ie for clothing.

And there are much better modern tricks than just this very basic one.

This is a disingenuous post.

Philanthropy is often used a strategy to lobby politicians and drive policy that benefits other investments while avoiding most taxes.

Nobody voted people like Bill Gates to have such a massive influence over media and institutions via "donations".

If you knew anything about NGOs and politics you wouldn't simply go for "They're asking for or donating money so they're obviously awesome, their intentions are great and it's a net positive".

Calling skepticism reflective is like saying that if you think your company doesn't have your best interest at heart like it says you're being paranoid.