Discussion
Sam Vimes ‘Boots’ Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness
AussieWog93: 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!).
legitster: 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 example is an airplane. The first class passengers are effectively paying 3x as much for the same outcome. The same is true for ovens and shoes and phones and cars.
CodeBytes: 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.
simonw: Re-reading Discworld books today demonstrates how timeless they are. Stories Terry wrote in the 1980s still feel like biting satire against the modern world.The books also get better as I get older - I read them first as a teenager and many of the deeper ideas about the human condition went straight over my head.The way the cult leader in Guards! Guards! manipulates his followers, to give just one example.
abstractbill: I read them as a teenager, and now my teenaged daughter has started reading them. They are every bit as good as I remember them being.
opinion3k: It depends on what brands.If you're chasing after the ones that are most well known on Instagram, then you're paying for the logo and getting quality that is not that much better than much cheaper stuff.If you look for lesser known brands that are more expensive but that expense is because of the materials and craftmanship, then it's often worth the money.
tyrust: ITT: an allegory is read literally
MengerSponge: 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 drop? Jansport, Eastpak, North Face? They're all the same mediocre product made by the same PE group. And they're still not cheap.
randusername: 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 the middle wants Timberlands or Harley-Davidsons or Doc Martins or whatever.
shermantanktop: This is what happens when vendors recognize the boots theory and build it in to their approach. If “more expensive is better,” just price the same item into a higher price bracket and pocket the difference. If you want to be fancy, rebadge it a bit.I’m just amazed that they don’t even bother to use alternate product pictures.
smallmancontrov: The other year I bought some Bose exercise earbuds because the cheap ones weren't staying in my ears. They died, warranty replaced them, they died again, I opened them up and the circuit board wasn't coated or potted or anything! The cheap ones were! The premium brand was penny-pinching harder than the no-name brand!
