search costs are real and economics is a dumb fake science that pretends people are perfect robots
The first assumption of most liberal economic theories is that consumers are self-interested "rational" actors with perfect knowledge of all the stuff companies always try to hide. This is a very real and scientific field, I swear.
The big brain behind this today is named Pete Diamond, and he definitely doesn't look like a sex pest with way too much money.
Also fun is that 18-19 of those bottles are literally the exact same product made by the exact same white label manufacturer before being sold by a brand called JVOSB or PAFUB
Edit: also, for wireless buds, I've been using these for over a year and they're fine... Is what I typed out before going to search for the ones I bought on Amazon, and finding that they're no longer sold, which is another fun aspect of shopping online!
Good lord, how evil do you have to be to imply that it is the fault of the people living in those condos that it collapsed
Look, if your condo collapses on you, you can vote with your dollars! Sure, you might now be as flat as those dollars, but now you know better! The customer must spend hours researching all purchase decisions to make sure those purchases don't kill them.
these rent seeking monsters don't do neoclassical economics when its inconvenient for them.
make the least cost avoider, the fucking building owner, care for the building, you fucking idiots. read coase, you fucking morons.
The dip aisle at my grocery is arranged by brand rather than type of dip, so if I want the cheapest hummus or whatever I have to walk back and forth comparing all the displays.
Displaying the holy grail of handbags for $10k and surrounding it with other designs that go for$5k to make it seem reasonable. People fall for that shit all the time.
[Priceless] is a good book on the psychology of pricing.
The "choice" is often just aesthetic anyway. Honestly, marketing should be illegal. Make essentials boring to buy. A water bottle doesn't need to be advertised as somehow relevant to my identity.
Let the products sell themselves/Fuck advertising, commercial psychology/Psychological methods to sell should be destroyed
The Minutemen were so good
God it's awful. Back in web 1.0 you'd be able to search for reccos and get nothing but nerds on message boards talking about what's good and what's bad. They'd obsess over minutia, but at their core they'd be hobbyists who would be happy to point people in the right direction. Now everything is shit out by an algorithm to harvest clicks or social media nonsense designed to capture engagement - it might as well all be white noise.
There are still dorks out there putting together good reccos, it's just real niche shit. Like this dude who does mattresses or this other dude who does headphones. Even then there's a lot of nerd bullshit to filter through.
the one thing the NYT is actually good for is product testing/review via wirecutter, genuinely saved me dozens of hours of time wasted doing “consumer research”. they’ve reached the same conclusions I have independently enough times that I tend to start there, if the recommendation seems to meet my needs I’ll just get it. they also actually call out shit like “all microwaves are actually made by the same company in the same factory out of the same parts” and their conclusion is “buy the one with the +30 second button and a mute feature”
if it tells you you need to subscribe, install ublock origin and/or try incognito mode. I run a bunch of extra blocklists with uB0 so I have never had an issue but some people have. also you don’t have to use their affiliate links, either add blocklists/URL cleaner extensions to sanitize them or just look up the recommended product yourself
for instance, this is the glass water bottle they recommend: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08M8Z5Z39/ (affiliate/tracking info removed from URL) and they recommend it because it’s made of borosilicate glass to tolerate a wider range of temperatures and rapid temperature changes, has no plastic or silicone touching your water, and has a nice cap that is easier to carry and open. seems like a solid choice, and you don’t have to wade through a tremendous amount of bullshit to get to that conclusion
I wouldn't mind product comparisons if it was actually about comparing features, aesthetics, and details.
But every channel for product information is not only allowed to lie to you, but is expected to lie to you. And no, I actually don't want to play two truths and a lie with a faceless stranger every time I want to buy toothpaste.
It's pretty well researched that "only" having 2-5 things to choose between is easier and more satisfying than having tens or hundreds.
Ah, I must have the best bang for my buck when I buy this product, time to spend the price of the whole product in man-hours choosing between slightly different ones.
Actually yes. I bought a "pro-level" saxophone just a moment ago, one I plan to keep for life. I spent a year playing an entry level sax that was good to get started, but now I plan to resale. I spent MONTHS searching through various saxophone brands and trying to determine which one to buy. The problem is "customer" reviews are 90% fake and there is so much hype and brand elitism, so I check forums and kept reading and reading...I could have thrown down 3,000 on a typical Yamaha, Selmer, or Yanigasawa and been done with it.
Eventually, I stumbled upon exactly what I wanted: A great deal. A new opened box pro-level Taiwanese horn, for under $1,000.
hell yeah
yr post made me think 'fucking hell I'd like to play the saxophone, I should buy one" and then remembered my friend gave me one 5 years ago and I've never used it. what a silly prick. wonder if it works
Damn. That hits me right in the gut. I've wanted to learn how to play the sax since Darkwing Duck was on TV when I was in secondary school. Never had the cash to spare, and even less now that we've got kids.
Comrade, if you have the mental space to do it, please toot that horn for me. :Care-Comrade:
New MacBook Pro is good, so is the Huawei Matebook Pro and that new crowdfunded modular laptop if ur looking for Ultrabooks
while the new macbook pro and air is super good(got my wife one when her nearly decade old mac died) I'm far too addicted to my trackpoint so that makes it a little bit easier to buy the next machine.
Going to a store is pretty much a dissasociative experience for me
What are you talking about? This amount of market choice is the paradise libertarians have been ranting and raving about for nearly a century! We dream of a council communist utopia where we spend 40 hours a week holding meetings. They dream of a market hellscape where we spend 40 hours a week in the shampoo isle of the grocery store.
