
The Experience Economy - jonbaer
https://stratechery.com/2018/the-experience-economy/
======
doctorpangloss
It is 2018 and companies still don’t know why most customers buy specific
stuff.

One interpretation, which is Qualtrics’/SAP’s persuasively written here, is
that you need extremely fine grained transaction data matched to surveys.

But people have been collecting transactional information correlated to
experiences for a while now.

Did it occur to anyone that the right interpretation of the data is that
people don’t need most of the shit they buy?

And I don’t even mean some kind of microeconomic / utilitarian / mathy /
psychological thing. Just that we are in boom times, and people are stupid and
buy things in boom times.

~~~
davidivadavid
People don't need most of the shit they buy in general. We don't need
literature, music, cinema, fine tasting food, or any of that stuff.

Not sure what that's supposed to mean, though.

Certainly humans have crossed the boundary where they can care about things
that go beyond their needs and satisfy other desires.

~~~
shanghaiaway
I'd argue that we do need all of those things. Their persistence throughout
human history suggests so.

------
hhw3h
People don't buy products or services. They buy better versions of themselves
or their businesses.

They buy the results promised not the method to delivering the results.

~~~
kyriee
I agree with the general sentiment, but this idea has its limits: people also
purchase loot and other digital products compulsively.

I don't believe they do it to be « better versions of themselves ».

~~~
tlb
I think this is the exact motivation. They believe they'll be better version
of themselves with some more in-game bling. Presumably you wouldn't consider
them better, but what matters is that the buyers themselves believe the
blingier-but-poorer version 2 will be better.

I don't think in-game loot is more bogus than IRL loot like designer handbags
or alloy rims. At least in-game loot doesn't end up in landfills.

