I thought those stores are basically hobbies for the wealthy local commercial landowners that own the building(s). They may anecdotally also be money laundering. They don't need to actually be a profitable business. The only cost to run it is basically lost rent for that space.
The Fancy Rug Dilemma
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Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#22It’s thirteen years old now (2012), but there’s a fascinating old Forbes article (from when, I think, it was a respectable publication) about the cross-pollination between Palo Alto’s rug dealers, and Palo Alto’s venture capitalists: https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/03/21/silic...
Love this (as someone with a love for rugs). Thanks for sharing.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#23Hey HN - long-time lurker and decided to start writing essays (inspired by PG and many of y'all as well). This one came from months of joking with my friends about different "fancy rug" problems which led me to think about my own "fancy rugs". Enjoy!
Merging all the dimensions of the question into Value as a function of Cost seems part of the challenge. Value is such a subjective concept. You finally get down to "We all need things transcending pure utility, connecting us to stories bigger than ourselves." at the end of the post. Even if "bigger than ourselves" takes on some explicit religious angle--thinking the Amish here--there is still copious room to dislike…
I think part of the Amish line of thought is instead of randomly and quickly adopting technology/growth a community should take time to understand what the impacts are of using them.
Some people think Amish don't use electricity, but that's not true. You'll find quite a few of them with things like solar panels and LED lights. These things tend to have very long lifespans and no grid connections limiting needs from outsiders.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#24Sure, let's take a rug as an example. I don't think there is one breakpoint. I think there are a set of axis of quality you invest into, roughly sequentially, as you go up the price scale of objects: - $50 - Something rug-shaped exists - $100 - Durability - $200 - Materials - $500 - Comfort and design - $1000 - Basic craftsmanship - $2000 - Refinement of craft - $5000 - Artistry & identity - $10000 - Tradition - $200…
You might need to add a category for rugs that tie the room together. They're worth quite a lot.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#25I appreciate the reading music, thanks.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#26What is the downward sloping arrow in those charts?
Enshitification. It's where the price goes up, but the quality actually goes down.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#27Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#28I thought those stores are basically hobbies for the wealthy local commercial landowners that own the building(s). They may anecdotally also be money laundering. They don't need to actually be a profitable business. The only cost to run it is basically lost rent for that space.
There are so many of them that I've always kinda suspected this, yea. I maybe-literally never saw anyone in any of them across a few years prior to COVID (despite working near enough to two that I saw them multiple times a day). But at the prices they go for I suppose they might only need to sell ~two a month if they got them for dirt cheap somehow, and owned the property or were grandfathered into extremely low rent? Or one person furnishing a mansion a year.
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#29Hey HN - long-time lurker and decided to start writing essays (inspired by PG and many of y'all as well). This one came from months of joking with my friends about different "fancy rug" problems which led me to think about my own "fancy rugs". Enjoy!
I have to ask... why the extra lettuce? At In-N-Out I sometimes ask for less lettuce because I feel like it's unnecessary filler compared to the other ingredients, lol. Maybe they've just been giving my unused lettuce to you...
Re: The Fancy Rug Dilemma
#30Is there an unspoken assumption here that value is absolute and deviations pathological? I can't understand how heirloom quality is abstract any more than say color scheme. How is valuing a sneaker collection more abstract than valuing, say, minimalism or utilitarianism? I've re-read the post multiple times, but I'm clearly missing something basic to allow comprehension.
It would be case by case for me. In a sense, all of them stem from identity. Another lens to explore this is effects: what first, second third order effects would a sneaker collection have versus minimalism? Some are more functional than others.