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

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

#531

Post by potato3732842 »

bluGill wrote: post #439
baq wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industrial dishwashers use different detergents and operate at a much higher temperatures. Most dishes don't like either. Not to mention if you're in the US you probably want three phase power.

> Industrial dishwashers Should be called dish sterilizers. They won't get dirt off - in industrial kitchens everything is rinsed first and then put in. Home dishwashers get just as hot as the industrial versions (if you turn on those cycles - might not be allowed by modern code, but older ones do), and use harsher chemicals because they are expected to get clean after food that has dried on for a few days.

>They won't get dirt off -

Oh yeah they will. We used to wash car parts at the end of shift before cleaning and draining the machine.

>in industrial kitchens everything is rinsed first and then put in.

Because you'd be cleaning out the dishwasher strainer grates thrice daily if you didn't make a min-effort attempt to reduce its garbage intake.

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

#532

Post by johnisgood »

fragmede wrote: post #454
rsynnott wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so. It... won't support the new dishes that come out in the 2030s? Like, other than energy efficiency (and this is basically already into diminishing returns for appliances like dishwashers), what must-have progress are you expecting?

IoT, and in the near future, arms for self loading and unloading. Who knows what advancement in UI will happen? If we knew what they were beforehand, we'd be doing then already. For example, the microwave. Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the…

> For example, the microwave. Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the time if you need it to go for a while. Hardly the stuff most people will replace a microwave for, but definitely a feature expected of newer microwaves.

How old are we talking about? My microwave is exactly like that, and it is about 15 years old if not more.

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

#533

Post by potato3732842 »

clan wrote: post #277
alexey-salmin wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that falls under the "unless someone tells you" part. It depends on your background. I grew up in Russia in the 90s, back then it was considered cool to put plastic panels on the walls of your apartment. Fresh and modern look, easy to wash, clearly superior to wallpaper. It was called "euro-renovation" as opposed to soviet-style or "grandma" apartments.

Exactly this. Fashion often conflicts with sense. That is a universal truth. Even though the fashion might be rooted in some form of sense. Mahogany and teak was in fashion around here for a while and oak went out the door. Oak was considered cheap so we painted it. The fashion then change to lye treated. Then we went with soap treated oak. And then one day Ikea came into fashion. Price is an important function of ch…

>Exactly this. Fashion often conflicts with sense.

That's the point. Most of it is flaunting waste of labor or materials.

Imagine how much labor it took to keep everything white from getting dusty and sooty in the era of coal and wood stoves and lamp and candle light.

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

#534

Post by gruez »

elzbardico wrote: post #359
safety1st wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a personal level I know several guys who are worth $10-30M, one who's worth probably $40M, and one who's worth around $700M, this is LNW. Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash…

Please remember that this is from 10 years ago. For wealth comparison, you need to take into account the valuation of assets in this period. What the author says about 700M, is probably roughly equivalent to today's 5 billions.

>What the author says about 700M, is probably roughly equivalent to today's 5 billions.

The cumulative inflation for the past 10 years is 35.6%, not 7x as you imply.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL

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

#535

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #402
jajko wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> provide decent value at given price point That is the reason for the fixation on IKEA: the "decent" part. If their peers are Target, Walmart, then to be sure IKEA are decent . Even during assembly though I've had joints fail such that the finished piece of furniture is, say, 90% structurally sound. But then trying to disassemble the piece so I can move ... I'm lucky if I am able to disassemble it without additional…

one thing to realize with Ikea is that they have different tiers of items. their hardboard furniture is somewhat disposable (and not disassemblable). their metal and plastic items, otoh are pretty indistructable.

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

#536

Post by rfrey »

fragmede wrote: post #454
rsynnott wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so. It... won't support the new dishes that come out in the 2030s? Like, other than energy efficiency (and this is basically already into diminishing returns for appliances like dishwashers), what must-have progress are you expecting?

IoT, and in the near future, arms for self loading and unloading. Who knows what advancement in UI will happen? If we knew what they were beforehand, we'd be doing then already. For example, the microwave. Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes, or enter the…

>Older microwaves have a cumbersome enter time, hit start procedure. Newer microwaves also have a "quick start" button for 30 seconds which you can just press four times to get it to go for two minutes

QS-QS-QS-QS-Start

2-0-0-Start

"Cumbersome"?

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

#537

Post by noboostforyou »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #176

The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information. For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed. Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better…

> Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use.

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness."

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

#538

Post by walthamstow »

ragazzina wrote: post #513
rsynnott wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer who has been either supplied-by your core op-secs team or thoroughly checked out by them etc etc. I _absolutely_ do not buy that very rich people have custom dishwashers. Like, _why_? There's no way it could be as good as a mass-produced…

For me it's the opposite: I cannot believe a rich person deals with "you need a Samsung account on the Samsung CleanDishes to unlock the QuickClean functionality".

Super rich don't load their dishwasher so they wouldnt know either way

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

#539

Post by geodel »

sunrunner wrote: post #517
toyg wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely do that. Having to relearn instrumentation and optionals, how the car handles, dealing with its size, etc etc, is an absolute ballache. If you're not into cars, there is no novelty in having to drive two or three different cars just because you want to be near the sea this week and near the city next week.

If you were that rich wouldn't you just hire someone to drive well for you? But if you liked driving for the sake of it would it not be part of the enjoyment to learn to handle different vehicles well?

As people are discussing there are different level of rich. At some level one want to reasonably good car that they drive themselves. At another level maybe people send advance team to setup before owner reach their vacation mansion and drive them around, cook their meals, etc once they are there.

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

#540

Post by mark_l_watson »

Five or ten years ago I listened to a podcast that featured an ex-butler of a billionaire family and he talked about ‘his family’ and their friends who were also very rich. The ex-butler said that the quality of the food they ate was perfect, extremely flavorful 100% nutritious meals. I can kind-of get this: the town my wife and I used to live in had two very expensive restaurants that served simple, totally delicious healthy food and I can imagine how wonderful it would be to a skilled chef serve you three meals a day like this.
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