Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
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Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
1–10 of 71 posts
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#2I love when this comes up and also I see it play out in my life, where my GF prefers fast fashion whereas I buy something from brands I like and I wear it for long (some of the clothes in my wardrobe have been there for 12+ years.. I feel old.)
Also Sir Terry Pratchett is a gem of an author and you should read all of his books. I have read through maybe 25% of Discworld and it's the funniest fantasy series ever.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#3Man, part of me wishes the theory were still true. So many products you spent good coin on and then later find out are in fact no better than the cheap stuff (or worse, literally just rebadged Alibaba products!).
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#4I love when this comes up and also I see it play out in my life, where my GF prefers fast fashion whereas I buy something from brands I like and I wear it for long (some of the clothes in my wardrobe have been there for 12+ years.. I feel old.) Also Sir Terry Pratchett is a gem of an author and you should read all of his books. I have read through maybe 25% of Discworld and it's the funniest fantasy series ever.
I wanted to like Discworld and read a couple of the books but they're frankly not funny.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#5I love when this comes up and also I see it play out in my life, where my GF prefers fast fashion whereas I buy something from brands I like and I wear it for long (some of the clothes in my wardrobe have been there for 12+ years.. I feel old.) Also Sir Terry Pratchett is a gem of an author and you should read all of his books. I have read through maybe 25% of Discworld and it's the funniest fantasy series ever.
This has stuck with me for years.
“Yes, yes,” said Bethan, sitting down glumly. “I know you don’t. Rincewind, all the shops have been smashed open, there was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?”
“Yeah,” said Rincewind, picking up a knife and testing its blade thoughtfully. “Luters, I expect.”
Excerpt From The Light Fantastic
Great author.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#6[deleted]
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#7Man, part of me wishes the theory were still true. So many products you spent good coin on and then later find out are in fact no better than the cheap stuff (or worse, literally just rebadged Alibaba products!).
This is still true in the margin, but it requires a shocking amount of research to suss it out. You might enjoy the Rose Anvil channel, as it dissects boots (literally) and discusses their quality in depth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHTlrwHttc
There are cases where spending more gets you a more premium product ... but in so, so many cases it's just like you stated. You spend on luxury, and the "nice" speakers have the same terrible PCB design and fail in 1-2 years, or the "nice" skilsaw ends up failing way too soon, etc. A brand used to be good, but now it's terrible, and you have no way of knowing. It's all a mess.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#8Its a fun thought exercise, but I've found the opposite to be true in most cases. More expensive clothes are usually less durable (depending on the brand). The same goes for appliances, and cars, and phones, and etc. The cheap designs are simple and robust and the expensive designs add complexity and features.
In reality I think there are more forces extracting money from the wealthy and their effete needs. My example is an airplane. The first class passengers are effectively paying 3x as much for the same outcome. The same is true for ovens and shoes and phones and cars.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#9I love when this comes up and also I see it play out in my life, where my GF prefers fast fashion whereas I buy something from brands I like and I wear it for long (some of the clothes in my wardrobe have been there for 12+ years.. I feel old.) Also Sir Terry Pratchett is a gem of an author and you should read all of his books. I have read through maybe 25% of Discworld and it's the funniest fantasy series ever.
I do the same (wear clothing for a long time) but I only buy the cheap stuff. I bought 1 replacement shirt in the last 5 years and 1 bag of replacement socks in the same time frame.
Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)
#10Man, part of me wishes the theory were still true. So many products you spent good coin on and then later find out are in fact no better than the cheap stuff (or worse, literally just rebadged Alibaba products!).
Yeah, I think about this a lot. I currently need a vanity base. There are no businesses doing this within 100 miles of me, as far as I can tell using the information avenues available to me. So I'm shopping semi-identical jpgs with some filters on untrustworthy metadata from Wayfair, Home Depot, Lowes... They're all selling the exact same things. Does it even matter if I pay $200 vs $2000 on these sites? I can't even see what the difference is between those two options.
What about the "craftsmen" on Etsy? Are they even real? Or, I could pay $5000 for an individual, local, physically extant American with a name and face to make it from scratch, which I would love to be able to afford.
So I pick one at random off Wayfair that claims to be made of solid wood and has a price that is neither suspiciously low nor suspiciously high. Maybe I've just bought cheap boots, but it's insane that I don't even know.