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

The other answers are practical (e.g. lobbying) but I’ll give a less practical angle: proximity to uniqueness and power.

There are only 100 U.S. senators at a time. In contrast, Forbes estimates there are about 900 billionaires in the U.S. alone this year.

And it is extremely difficult to become a Senator. Many very rich people have tried and failed to win election to the U.S. Senate. It’s not as straight forward as success in business. Politics is somewhat like magic. It’s extremely difficult to predict what is going to attract votes when. A lot of very confident rich people have been humbled this way.

Politicians are also demonstrably popular in ways the very rich are not. You only become a Senator if hundreds of thousands, to millions, of individual citizens vote for you (depending on the state). Congress overall is unpopular, but individual politicians are fairly popular to their own constituencies. Again, this is not something you can just buy, and many very rich people are thirsty for this kind of public validation.

Finally, Senators have real power, at least collectively. If enough Senators agree on something, the police will make you do it. Rich people want to shape those decisions if they can, yes, but many also like the feeling of being “close” to that kind of power. Since most will never have it themselves.

The above goes for the president even more. And for many state governors too.

Huh, for me the nice part of being rich would be to not have to choose between so much goods.

Like, when buying a new bicycle I have to spent lots of time figuring out the tradeoffs between what I want, what I can get a different price points etc, as buying something wrong will set me back and be a while until I can try again. But for a reach person, they can just buy the top spec of everything, and if they don't like it just buy from a different brand.

Of course, since I'm interested in cycling, this nerding is a bit fun. But for loads of stuff it's just a hassle. Like our oven recently broke down. Then I had to spend a few evenings researching what to buy, how to get it delivered, what to do with installation etc. If I had more money, I could just tell someone to fix it, and "get me the best one".

What comes to mind here is Up In The Air starring George Clooney.

Now Ryan Bingham doesn't command any particular status or wealth, but he makes a living firing people on behalf of other companies ("Concierge firing-as-a-service"?) and he leads a nomadic lifestyle that many of us would find completely intolerable.

His one lifelong dream is to earn 10,000,000 Frequent Flyer miles and hold the special Unobtanium card from American Airlines. [SPOILER WARNING] He achieves this during the final flight of the film, and when he dials the number on the back, he comes to realize that this is his unique number and there is a specially-assigned staffer waiting by the phone to personally take his call.

I can envision this sort of revelation as the experience of someone who comes into money and suddenly finds their needs being personally met by a concierge or family office.

You cannot necessarily compare a 1990s Miele product and 2020s Miele product. I've hardly ever heard of people having problems with their old Miele stuff, know several people who have had problems with their new Miele stuff.

Further anecdotally (from a guy who works at an appliance store) there is a difference in quality between Miele stuff made in their German factories and stuff made in their newer Eastern European factories (often their 'budget' line).

I got one because it was the only reasonable model I could find with a water softener built in. It lasted a good while (~8 years) and performed well i.e. no hard water stains on dishes. After 8 years it developed a grinding noise in the recirculation pump which pointed to broken gears and a replacement which would cost in the ballpark of a new machine so I replaced it.

The design itself has some "German overfeatured" idiosyncrasies to me. Like, when the wash is done, a little stick extends out of the top of the machine pushing the door open to vent. But then, when you tug on the door to open it, you can hear a little geared motor spin and retract that stick. Just more stuff to design, add to BOM, and to break.