Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 829 posts

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

#641

Post by Der_Einzige »

oezi wrote: post #282
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 The problem is that if an Ikea furniture lasts 15 years then that's enough. People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore. Life's circumstances change faster and buying quality often isn't worth it. Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so.

High end furniture from brands that last 50-100 years (i.e. Hancock and Moore, Century, a lot of other brands made in the Hickory NC area) hold their value. Go to the estate sales near you and watch as the prices for pieces from those companies (also real mid century modern furniture) holds at least 1/2 it's value 10+ years later.

High end furniture is the kind, like goodyear welted boots, where you keep it forever and reupholster it every 10 years.

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

#642

Post by poulpy123 »

ackbar03 wrote: post #544
noboostforyou wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm curious about this though, does a rich man actually wear the same pair of boots for 10 years? That being said, I've noticed that a lot of clothes that I bought 10 years ago or so are of pretty high quality compared to today, (and no, they are not rich man's clothes). Some of them I actually have been wearing for more than 10 years now.

Of course. And also it may be less expensive to buy 5 pairs of shoes that last 3 years each than 1 pair that last 15 years. Anyway the rich don't get rich because they can buy better clothes or appliances, they can buy them because they are rich.

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

#643

Post by bluGill »

canucker2016 wrote: post #632
bluGill wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even wealthy in the US tend to have much less servants than they would have in the past. Labor is too expensive, and the large middle class has made automation just as good and sometimes better. Sure I could hire someone to turn on my lights - but the switch on the wall works well and isn't much effort (compare to the lamp lighter of the past which did work that would be annoying).

Note, I and, I assume, the parent commenter weren't talking about home automation. "Virtual personal assistant" to me meant a computer program that could understand speech and carry out a limited set of actions based on that speech - the computer equivalent of a human personal assistant/secretary.

That has been getting much less common. My dad used to have "his secretary" do tasks like schedule is meetings and book travel - the secretary was a department secretary for a couple dozen engineers and was kept busy just serving those needs. Today I don't have a secretary for several hundred engineers. My computer is better at scheduling meetings than the secretary ever was. Go back 100 years and the rich would have hard far more servants than they would today because various levels of automation have replaced many jobs.

The right still have servants of various types of course. Right now "Virtual personal assistant" are too limited to replace humans. Since I cannot afford a human servant I'm hoping that changes. Time will tell.

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

#644

Post by potato3732842 »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #24
HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I really like this post since it shows how very little there is for the wealthy to buy other than status goods. The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes. We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards statu…

I'd say it really depends on the mentality of the very rich person The very wealthy are going to fly private. Upper middle class could swing this on a case-to-case basis, but not regularly and especially if not if they frequently travel Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like clean…

>The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.

That has more to do with owning business interests than wealth. The guy who owns a small chain of a mundane business, has stake in another business via investment, etc, etc, his social circle looks roughly the same.

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

#645

Post by Der_Einzige »

caulkboots wrote: post #633
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…

The only Miele you want is the vacuum cleaner.

The only vaccum cleaner you want is a central vac (Miele doesn't make these).

Central Vac's are easily 4X as powerful for often the same price as the over priced Miele stuff.

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

#646

Post by ty6853 »

bane wrote: post #488

Grew up poor, made it a little in life - could maybe retire now. The things I and the people I grew up with don't know how to do at all can be shocking. People who grew up similarly and ended up in middle class seem to be similar unless they put real time into it: - how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc. - hiring people to clean your house, do yard work, etc. - traveling out of the country, or in ma…

The real cost of hiring people to do stuff for your house is it's actually hella expensive to get licensed and bonded legal employees with references that attest they aren't thieves, and if you don't eventually they steal your shit or they get hurt and sue you for a billion dollars.

I could easily hire people to do it, but I sweat bullets everytime I am guilt tripped into letting a neighbor kid mow the lawn because I know if he gets hurt I'll lose everything (renter's/ homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover unlicensed contractors).

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

#647

Post by bluGill »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #108
ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #80

This is a great answer. But I'm curious what the answer would look like if every strata in it was not "things you can buy" but "things you can do with the money" ... if the "IMPACT" section was delineated at each level. One of the things I envy the most about my rich friends is their capacity to be generous. They can materialize their compassion on a regular basis without having to balance their budget. I'd like to s…

There are only 902 American billionaires*, but this 'Redditor' claims to know nine of them. The wording implies these were chance friendships. It is a big answer, but not a great answer. * https://npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5345950/forbes-billionaires...

People tend to stick together. Once you know one odds become higher that you get introduced to a few more. Billionaires like parties as much as anyone else, so if you are not an insane stalker and get to know one well they will invite you to parties just to have a group of friends and now you are vetted so the others will not stay away as much. Different people have different sizes of friend circles so breaking in is hard.

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

#648

Post by bluGill »

hcfman wrote: post #205

What would be great if these ultra rich people started to associate success not just with money but also with being a decent human being and giving back. Because just having shit lots of money is not my definition of being successful. Ultra rich should make giving back a structural part of their lives and businesses.

They generally do. However decent human being and giving back are not well defined terms and so they will often strongly disagree with whatever definition you happen to use.

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

#649

Post by mixmastamyk »

kiney wrote: post #478
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore. I'm going to challenge this assertion: did anyone, ever? Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either. I do recall going to the charity shops and finding older wooden fur…

actually most of my furniture is either inheritend (mostly from my grandpa and an aunt) or just "was there" in the old house (1835) I bought... Couldn't imagine living with modern Ikea junk.

Ikea has a range. If you choose the junk aimed at dorm rooms you got what you paid for. The rest sells easily at moving time, being a known commodity.

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

#650

Post by etblg »

fragmede wrote: post #474
jajko wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy - experiences. This is what many rich pay their last dime for. You can get much better experiences than they pay for, for much much much less. Going for an exotic tropical beach location? Well they normally stay in sterile 5* bubble which is boring beyond belief and very unauthentic. You can go ie to Seychelles or Bali, live with locals in cheapish airbnbs, swim on same beaches or go to same restaurants t…

That's European rich though. If you're American rich, you're Reed Hastings who co-founded Netflix, so you can buy up a ski resort in Utah for you and your pals so you don't have to ski with the poors. https://www.forbes.com/sites/everettpotter/2023/09/17/netfli...

Powder Mountain (Reed Hastings' ski resort) has lift tickets available for about $100-150, in-line with most common ski resorts in America (about the same price as Hunter Mountain in New York, for example, the place everyone in the area takes their family).

If he wanted to not ski with the poors he would do as rich people already do and go to Deer Valley.

Although last I heard Powder Mountain was pivoting a bit to an premium resort kind of deal, same kind of thing Windham Mountain in NY is doing. Still, neither are pricing out normal skiiers yet, they're just edging in to "do you have more money than sense? dump some of it in this overpriced 'mountain club'" territory. If I had Reed Hastings money I wouldn't bother buying one of them up, I would just fly in to any of the existing nice ones with better terrain and facilities than Powder Mountain (or Windham) have.

Post reply on HN