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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)

#821

Post by nunez »

viraptor wrote: post #156
nunez wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miele makes really good stuff. I have their stackable W1/T1 washer/dryer. It's unbelievably good at washing or drying pretty much anything. They also supposedly last forever, even today. I'll let y'all know how true that is in 20 years LOL

Oh no... Ok, Miele rant - I got a whole set in the new house. Their firmware SUCKS. Turning on the oven/dishwasher takes 5-10s. The dishwasher takes 3 power button presses with no feedback. The oven has no indication when it starts turning on and it's a touchpanel, so you stand there like an idiot deciding is the next press will work or be perfectly timed to turn it off again. Then once you start the drying after ste…

idk; i feel like lacking UX is a common thread amongst appliance manufacturers

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

#822

Post by mykowebhn »

madaxe_again wrote: post #493
mykowebhn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this so much. I'm not your level wealthy, but I don't work, live comfortably, and I'm happy. I prefer not to eat at expensive restaurants, but I enjoy restaurants that serve good food. I don't really want to fly to an expensive city and spend lots of money. I'd rather spend time in nature, hike, try to ID plants, and spend time with my wife and our animals.

Yeah, that’s pretty much our schtick too - we live off grid in the boondocks of Portugal, and our idea of a holiday is to go spend a month hiking somewhere or other. Spend my days hauling gravel and digging pits. It’s good.

Really? What a coincidence. Where in Portugal? We live in the Algarve near the border with Spain.

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

#823

Post by ofcourseyoudo »

bluGill wrote: post #643
canucker2016 wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

to clarify I meant a personal assistant that is an actual human but accessible via email/text, not someone that is actually with you physically

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

#824

Post by kortilla »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #747
kortilla wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world. What definition of “stealing” are you using here? It seems like it somehow includes owning a large equity stake in a profitable or rapidly growing company since that’s how most people that “make $400mm/year” are actually gaining wealth. Claiming that is stealing is pretty dumb considering it’s how everyone that holds equity gains wealth.…

"Stealing" is the most polite, least offensive way I could put it. "Crime against humanity" is closer to the description I would otherwise use. Am I being more clear? The effects of that level of accumulation of wealth and power on the individual, the community, country, and the world are grossly negative. No one who has ever lived deserves that amount / percentage of wealth. Where it gets blurry is "so, what is enou…

I think you’re very confused about what people with this level of wealth actually own. They don’t have that much cash.

They own a company that a lot of other people want a part of so the open market value for shares of that company go up significantly. There is no negative impact or stealing involved here. There isn’t even accumulation.

All wealth gains at these magnitudes are through appreciation of existing assets.

If the man who sent two pizzas in exchange for 10,000 Bitcoin just sat on that Bitcoin all of this time, he would be “stealing” or conducting a “crime against humanity”. Do you see how ridiculous that is?

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

#825

Post by kortilla »

TFYS wrote: post #466
kortilla wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world. What definition of “stealing” are you using here? It seems like it somehow includes owning a large equity stake in a profitable or rapidly growing company since that’s how most people that “make $400mm/year” are actually gaining wealth. Claiming that is stealing is pretty dumb considering it’s how everyone that holds equity gains wealth.…

The wealth should be going to the people who create it, which is the people who do the work and the customers that use the product. The only reason owners get to take a part of it is the power that ownership of capital gives them. Using power to take what others create is quite close to stealing. It's no different from some feudal lord taking what his peasants create. Legal within our system, but that doesn't mean th…

Your house gains value as people improve the are around it. Should they have a stake in the equity in your house?

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

#826

Post by kortilla »

rsynnott wrote: post #470
kortilla wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobile phones they had were absolute garbage, service was abysmal, and the security was non existent. There was no way to get to a smartphone without cumulatively trillions of dollars of investment in silicon, software, network rollouts, and so on. A person with 100 billion in 1998 could not have bought one despite it being a decade away for the entire population. The very wealthy cannot get things that are that…

> A person with 100 billion in 1998 could not have bought one despite it being a decade away for the entire population. Oh? What d'you call this, then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator Now, granted, most very rich people would probably not have _wanted_ one of these.

That’s not a smartphone. Re-read what I wrote. No amount of money would have produced anything close to an iPhone.

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

#827

Post by tomhow »

RemainsOfTheDay wrote: post #820
toyg wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Please don't register accounts to break the guidelines with.

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#828

Post by account42 »

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…

> Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.

You also need to be able to afford the higher up front price. Sam Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness in practice.

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

#829

Post by RemainsOfTheDay »

tomhow wrote: post #827
RemainsOfTheDay wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please don't register accounts to break the guidelines with. Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I get that, and it will be the exception. Unfortunately, the comment I responded to deserved to be called out, beyond its xenophobic tone. (Btw, I can't find it anymore.)
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