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Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

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Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#41

Post by [deleted] »

MengerSponge wrote: post #27
legitster wrote: post #8

Its 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 exampl…

Don't be obtuse. Of course you can spend more money without buying better craftsmanship. Some trainers from Prada or Balenciaga will wear out faster than a pair of Aldens. Consider school backpacks. If you can, you should probably buy a Tom Bihn backpack. It's $400 and will last for decades. Spending more money will buy something fancier, but it won't be better at being a backpack. If you don't have that much cash to…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#42

Post by Onavo »

randusername wrote: post #39

Personally I think it's an inverted bathtub curve. Some things are so cheap you can't mess it up. Some things are well-made because the manufacturer made a series of quality-conscious decisions that really added up. The trouble is the middle, where consumers pay the most attention to branding to make decisions. At the extremes, though, brands matter less. The poor man wants boots. The rich man wants boots. The man in…

> Some things are so cheap you can't mess it up.

A good example would be modern safety razors. I was looking at alternatives to the King C Gillette and most of the generic branded ones performed similarly to the big three German brands.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#43

Post by [deleted] »

entuno wrote: post #29
CodeBytes wrote: post #12

This feels like it's becoming less and less true, good quality items are becoming so expensive now or very hard to find. I do think it is still very true for tools though. It's nearly always worth getting decent ones, they nearly give better results or are easier to use and last so much longer.

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. The "boots" item feels less true, because expensive doesn't seem to be as correlated with "good quality" as it used to. But the general statement still very much stands. Things like financial products that charge higher interest rates to poorer people, or services that offer discounts for paying annually rather than…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#44

Post by devilbunny »

skybrian wrote: post #36
devilbunny wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With luxury brands, it depends on what you buy. My mother-in-law still owns and uses 1970s-vintage Louis Vuitton handbags. They are built to last. A hand-stitched leather suitcase is expensive. It will also last until your grandchildren are dead.

If it was made before suitcases commonly had wheels, you’re still going to want to replace it. The grandkids (if there are any) won’t want it.

It’s not suitable for air travel, but I treat anything for air travel as disposable. I still use it all the time for car-based travel. It’s larger and nicer than what I fly with.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#45

Post by giglamesh »

_fat_santa wrote: post #23
AussieWog93 wrote: post #3

Man, 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!).

I would say this still holds true but not for singular products. Take Costco for example, long term you save money and you get high quality products. But that comes at the cost of having to spend quite a bit up front to buy in bulk. Not to mention it also assumes you have the space to store those products.

Funds to buy, space to store and also the means to transport the bulk goods. We do most of our grocery shopping on foot or by bicycle which rules out Costco for us.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#46

Post by lotsofpulp »

entuno wrote: post #29
CodeBytes wrote: post #12

This feels like it's becoming less and less true, good quality items are becoming so expensive now or very hard to find. I do think it is still very true for tools though. It's nearly always worth getting decent ones, they nearly give better results or are easier to use and last so much longer.

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. The "boots" item feels less true, because expensive doesn't seem to be as correlated with "good quality" as it used to. But the general statement still very much stands. Things like financial products that charge higher interest rates to poorer people, or services that offer discounts for paying annually rather than…

>Things like financial products that charge higher interest rates to poorer people, or services that offer discounts for paying annually rather than monthly are great examples of this.

Exchange of future cash flows are not comparable to a one time exchange of goods or services due to the risk of default.

> And less direct things, like being able to drive to cheaper shops and buy in bulk, or being able to do preventative maintenance to avoid a cheap fix turning into an expensive one.

This is a good example, but the best example I can think of is having sufficient cash flow to be able to purchase a home in a higher socioeconomic neighborhood, because if you have kids, you are effectively paying almost nothing for a higher quality education since a lot of comes back to you in the form of equity and your child’s increased chances of financial stability.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#47

Post by jerf »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10
AussieWog93 wrote: post #3

Man, 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…

One thing that may help resolve your issue is that while I do agree with the Sam Vimes theory, it is also not guaranteed. There are also scenarios where the $50 boots will last forever, or you can buy $2 boots that will only last five years... but across your entire lifetime will still be cheaper. Or you can account for the fact that you take better care of your stuff than most people and the cheap thing may in fact be fine for a long time. Or you buy the cheap thing twice and maybe in 15 years when you have more disposable income buy the thing that lasts. Or buy the cheap thing and hit the occasional estate sale and eventually find a thing that lasts, but for dirt cheap prices, because you weren't in a hurry because your immediate needs were met and you had the time to wait for a deal.

The meta-lesson of the Vimes theory is really more that you need to think about these things, but it's not guaranteed that the expensive thing will be better in the longterm on a bang-for-the-buck basis. For furniture, there is something to be said for the technique beloved by the just-starting-out set of buying "whatever I scrounged together from garage sales", and there's something to be said for "I outfitted my apartment from Ikea". Yeah, it's cheap and one way or another you're going to pay for that cheapness, but it's so much cheaper than the alternative that as long as you aren't practicing your wrestling moves on the Ikea end tables, you can get a long way with them even if you're replacing them every 10 years.

And, per your last point... at least when you buy cheap, you know you bought cheap. I found myself in need of a dining room table light a few years back. We went to a lighting store and I stood there staring at all the bespoke LEDs that I knew would die and couldn't be replaced, and the multi-thousand dollar lamps that looked nice but I simply couldn't know if they were quality... and ended up buying a $15 dollar extension cord with 5 light sockets on it, bought some light bulbs to put in it, and wrapped the cord around the remains of the previous what-turned-out-to-be-proprietary track lighting. We decorate it for the season with various ribbon things to hide the cords. Because damn it, if it's all just going to fail anyhow, at least I knew I could replace the lights with whatever I wanted, and it cost me less than $100 all in. We've had that for, gosh, I think at least 10 years now, and I've probably cycled the lights at least twice now, but that's probably still under $100 total... all because I simply can't trust the expensive stuff.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#48

Post by nonameiguess »

legitster wrote: post #8

Its 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 exampl…

This highly, highly depends. I've never bought a Meile appliance but seen others here swear on them for durability. Le Creuset and All Clad make cookware I've had for decades with no problems or degradation at all and they'll last for centuries as far as I can tell. I've got a 70L pack I bought from the Arcteryx factory store 20 years ago and I've damn near taken it to the moon and back. Virtually every mountain in North America. Had it rained on, dunked into streams, fallen while full of 40 kilos of gear onto sharp rock. Not so much as a single seam has ever frayed and it's just just as waterproof as it was the day I bought it.

And you're overestimating the cost of first class, at least in my experience, and that's kind of a lot of experience. I work in pre-sales engineering and travel a ton. My company won't pay for first class, but I'm 6'2" with ten screws in my spine and always pay for the upgrade, and it's usually between $200-$500, which has never tripled the price and almost never even so much as doubles it. You can sneer that I'm overpaying for nothing, but you try getting into a situation where sitting in a sardine can for four hours leaves you unable to stand up straight for 40 hours when you land. To me, it's worth it. The other option is I die with more zeros in my bank account, which is even more pointless. It's not like I'm failing to hit savings goals because of this.

Same thing applies with cars, by the way. I work from home when not traveling and don't drive very much, but I do own a luxury vehicle, and the difference between that any nearly any rental is pretty stark. It doesn't win on any reliability rating I'm aware of, but I've put less than 20,000 miles on it in 6 years of ownership and don't particularly care about the durability. I care about comfort and my own car is way the fuck more comfortable than the Nissans and Toyotas the rental agencies give me.

"Effete needs" is awfully sneering. I've lived on the back of an Abrams tank for weeks at a time in the past. I lived in the backseat of a 1994 Honda Civic and worked an overnight shift detailing theme park restrooms while putting myself through community college 25 years ago. I can live with little to no comfort if I actually need to, but given the choice and sufficient disposable income that it makes no difference, why the hell would I choose to be less comfortable just so I can brag to all the Bogleheads that my savings account has an extra hundred grand in it when I need five mil to retire anyway? Frugality doesn't push the needle much in the realm of travel and consumer goods. Cheap housing and a well-paying job is what pushes the needle.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#49

Post by HFguy »

triceratops wrote: post #17
legitster wrote: post #8

Its 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 exampl…

> The first class passengers are effectively paying 3x as much for the same outcome Not the same outcome. They show up at their destinations fresh from a good night's sleep, having showered at the lounge. Their back doesn't hurt from trying to sleep upright in a tiny seat or schlepping a heavy rucksack. If you have enough money you are ok with paying to get those outcomes.

Most of first class is not paying their own money for those flights.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#50

Post by tialaramex »

entuno wrote: post #29
CodeBytes wrote: post #12

This feels like it's becoming less and less true, good quality items are becoming so expensive now or very hard to find. I do think it is still very true for tools though. It's nearly always worth getting decent ones, they nearly give better results or are easier to use and last so much longer.

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. The "boots" item feels less true, because expensive doesn't seem to be as correlated with "good quality" as it used to. But the general statement still very much stands. Things like financial products that charge higher interest rates to poorer people, or services that offer discounts for paying annually rather than…

It's also just broadly true about whole categories. For example home ownership. Most poor people rent, which means having a place to live costs them money, but they get nothing for that money as a result, they just need to keep paying forever.

Utilities, in my country people who aren't trusted to pay for electricity, gas, even water (which you need to live!) in arrears have to pay up front for it, so maybe I use 500 kWh of electricity, and I've agreed to pay 20p per kWh = £100, at the end of the month I get a bill for £100 and I settle that a few days later, if I don't eventually I get angry letters and eventually a court summons. That's electricity I used two weeks ago and I won't even pay for it until May. But if I was poor, I might find my best option is I pre-pay £10 to get 40 kWh of electricity. So that 500kWh would cost £120 and I have to buy it first before I use it and if at any time I forget or can't pay the lights go off immediately that my credit runs out.

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