
The Lure of Luxury - huihuiilly
https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-lure-luxury
======
shantly
> Why would anyone spend thousands of dollars on a Prada handbag, an Armani
> suit, or a Rolex watch? If you really need to know the time, buy a cheap
> Timex or just look at your phone and send the money you have saved to Oxfam.

One issue is there's a kind of missing middle in many goods markets. There's
cheap shit, and overpriced "luxury" signaling goods that may or may not be
much better. Personally I often find sorting the actually-good from the faux-
good on the (lower end of the) luxury side, then catching it used or on sale,
easier than trying to find then assess the quality of mid-level products (if
they exist at all—often they do not) or suss out unusually good cheap
products.

So far as signaling goes, until people stop being biased in favor of folks who
look well-off (or at least "proper" for whatever setting), even when they
think they're not, that won't stop being a thing worth considering.

EDIT: nb. there's a lot more to this article, for those who haven't read it
yet, and I'm in no way intending to _dismiss_ it.

~~~
japhyr
That's one of the great things about a good subreddit. A good subreddit, for
me, often ends up helping me to know how to spend a reasonable amount of money
in that area and come away with high-quality products.

I have been lurking on r/chainsaw, r/budgetaudiophile, and others for a while.
I was quite comfortable buying a $400 chainsaw, knowing what I was getting
that I wouldn't find in a $200 saw, and what I didn't need in a $600 saw. The
same goes for the $130 pair of speakers I just bought. I had no idea what to
get from looking at Amazon, but a little time reading r/budgetaudiophile led
me to an affordable pair of speakers that gave me the best listening
experience I've had in decades.

~~~
johnbrodie
I'd be careful here, you have to _very_ carefully assess the domain of the
subreddit visitors. My own anecdotes:

r/miata - Useless for the entire subgroup that takes their car to the track,
and will very likely still give advice, it'll just be bad or outright
dangerous.

r/cigars - Totally jump on bandwagons, and generally are "new" to the world of
cigars.

To highlight another point, a lot of more niche subs largely cater to those
new to the niche. Those are the same people commenting and giving others
advice, whether they really have the knowledge to or not. This mechanism over
a few months seems to turn everything into an echo chamber, and you end up
with new people jumping onto a bandwagon without enough info.

Same goes for Amazon reviews, to a large degree - That $50 set of sockets
might be great for someone who wants to change their oil filter, but will
literally shatter for someone doing more involved work.

I think this is where the traditional forums are much better. I want my info
from "serious" people who hang around the community for years, not from
someone who came into it a few weeks ago, and really just want some
upvotes/points/whatever.

~~~
jacoblambda
I've found decent success with /r/MechanicalKeyboards/ and a good chunk of the
"classy" liquor subreddits (i.e. /r/scotch et all) since you tend to have a
number or regulars who you can pick up a fairly solid taste from (how close
they are to your own tastes) and can pretty reliably make decisions off of
that.

~~~
sk5t
I wasn't going to say anything here, but MechanicalKeyboards is IME the
absolute worst--it's an impenetrable echo chamber for keyboard OCDism, and I
say that as someone who owns several mechanical keyboards and has nerded out
in more than a few related categories.

~~~
jacoblambda
I'm not going to deny that but if you just filter for content that your goal
from the subreddit like I mentioned in my comment then you can pick up some
meaningful information and have some good discussions. MK is such a wide field
for discussion and of course there are going to be OCD elitists but there are
also a lot of people who are just going for ergonomics or function. As long as
you keep that in mind and just ignore the posts that don't serve your interest
in the subreddit then you'll have a good time.

------
esotericn
Status signalling works.

I wish it didn't. Life would be much simpler. But it really does.

Wearing different clothes, driving a different car (or not driving a car,
riding a bike) has an enormous impact on the impression that you leave on
people.

It's not necessarily 'spend more win more'. A fancy car might not ingratiate
you with the locals.

Beyond that - I think you have to unpick what is meant by "don't need". If I
were restricted to buying things I need, I'd be donating something like 80% of
my income to charity.

There are interesting cases - like why someone who really can't afford a
particular thing buys it anyway - but usually that sort of thing, in my
experience, comes down to a type of stress that has them making suboptimal
decisions all over (e.g. if you're poor, everything is harder, because
everything is stressful, and...)

~~~
alexpetralia
It's important to remember that EVERY group uses status signaling.

Those hoodies you wear? You are signaling which tribe you belong to and your
status within it. (In particular, this one is called "aposematic signaling",
or I-can-get-away-with-it signaling.)

You think you're beyond status by intellectualizing over status signaling? No,
instead you're just signaling (via intellectual status) to ingratiate yourself
within a tribe that values intellectualism.

I have a fairly intellectual group of friends, and it was a sobering
realization for us when we all noticed that - at least in part - the degree to
which we share our intellectual curiosities may simply reflect a way to stay
"in-group." Should we fail to intellectualize, then we might no longer "fit
in" and belong to a tribe.

People signal in different ways - some by bragging, others by refusing to
brag, some by buying, some by refusing to buy - but in the end, it's mostly
about pledging allegiance to one tribe and rejecting the other in opposition.
It's really no different from politics.

Everyone belongs to a tribe, and every tribe has a status hierarchy.

~~~
Retric
That’s only really true for homogeneous groups. When culturally diverse people
get together they rarely agree on what the status symbols are. Think old vs
new money at a party. For any given metric say highest status, smartest,
strongest, or most attractive person it’s hard to define an absolutely
objective criteria.

~~~
alexpetralia
Precisely! But I would argue that homogeneity (in beliefs, culture, SES) is
what defines the tribe.

A heterogenous, divided group would not be a cohesive tribe, and therefore
would not have a unifying status hierarchy. Old money and new money are
separate tribes, and each status signals to ingroup members in profoundly
different ways.

------
eastbayjake
Commenters here seem to be missing his real thesis: we buy these objects
because humans believe there are "deeper" properties than just its sensory or
signaling value.

One study Bloom performed: people were asked to value a dress shirt in a
plastic wrapping that had merely been owned -- never touched -- by a
celebrity. The self-assessed value on the mint condition shirt was higher than
a regular mint condition shirt -- merely being _owned on paper_ by a celebrity
gave it more value. I think about this experiment probably once a month.

If you enjoyed Professor Bloom's writing, check out his research on babies'
sense of morality:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html)

------
FreedomToCreate
I see this happening a lot amongst my friends in the bay area. Now 4-5 years
removed from school, everyone paid off there debts and are setting up there
adult life. One buys a home, another buys a home the same size or bigger. One
buys a tesla, the other buys the one model up. One gets a drone, the other
buys a drone the week after. It goes on and on. Most of the time now, meeting
with them, discussions are about what they bought or what they plan on buying.

To me it feels like everyone uses the goods they buy to show how important
they are. Expensive goods means you are valued in what you do, that's why you
can afford it. I break the group mold, driving a corolla, living in a rental
mostly because I want to save my money for other goals but sometimes I do feel
the pang to buy one of the newly announced toys so I can go to a meet up and
show it off.

~~~
Domenic_S
Another way to look at it -- your friends are very close in age and class,
exposed to the same things, and likely going through the same life stages
together. We are all less different than we'd like to believe.

~~~
defterGoose
But I'm a unique, rugged individual whose whose deepest desires and life-
perspective are my own! Don't spout your collectivist socialist propaganda in
_my_ direction!

/s

------
Animats
_It is hard for people to opt out._

Nah. It's not hard. Just don't buy stuff you don't need. Good ad blocking
helps, too.

I know a couple who were way too much into bling. They blew through $15
million and ended up in crap jobs. The wife once told me I should get a Rolex.
I said "Why?".

There are many people who have money but don't show it. Read "The Millionaire
Next Door".

~~~
kijin
> There are many people who have money but don't show it.

You could attribute that to humility or good manners, but you could also
attribute it to the fact that their persona is good enough of a signal that
they don't need to add another signal.

This is especially true of traditional nobility and the super-rich. It doesn't
matter whether Bill Gates wears a $40 watch or a $40K watch because everyone
already knows that he's one of the richest guys in the world. Marie Antoinette
wore diamonds not because she felt a need to demonstrate her status and power,
but because she liked diamonds and happened to have the status and power to
get them.

~~~
vixen99
For the record, Gates's watch apparently cost $10.

[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/30/bill-
gates-...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/30/bill-gates-admits-
i-wear-10-wrist-watch/)

However if you appreciate a fine watch that does more than tell the time (and
who's to dissect the whys and wherefores?) buy it and support the families of
the workers who are part of the company that produce it. Someone sweeps the
floor in their workshops and needs the job. Ditto all the other luxury goods.

~~~
kijin
That was his previous watch. Gates apparently upgraded to a slightly more
expensive watch last year.

Buying a $20 watch will support some Chinese workers. Buying a $2K watch will
support Japanese or Swiss workers. But I don't think buying a $20K watch will
support workers any more than a $2K watch does. It probably depends on the
company and the watch, but I think it's a safe bet that most of the markup at
the extreme high end of the spectrum goes to a small number of managers and
dealers.

~~~
bingerman
Ordering an expensive watch straight from a known master is one option, they
usually don't spend a lot of money on managers, dealers or even advertising.
For 20k you've got plenty options. The only downside is that selling your
generic-but-good-quality rolex is easy and repairing/maintenance can be done
everywhere while things with small brands can sometimes be more complicated.

Designing and making a mechanical watch with many complications takes a lot of
time, so it's entirely possible to buy even a 200k watch where you are mostly
paying for the actual labor (of a high-skilled professional/artist).

------
zwieback
One interesting nugget from the article: “Surfer dudes don’t compete with Star
Trek geeks for status”. The point being that signaling is often very local,
restricted to your social or interest group.

------
somethoughts
I actually think its a great mechanism for wealth redistribution.

Imagine the following scenario:

Both Person A and Person B want a watch and will both consume one. Person A is
very rich and Person B is lower or middle income. Assume Watch 1 and Watch 2
are made in the exact same factory. Watch 1 has artistic elements and is
marked up 300% with 200% on making nicer packaging, manual, ad editorials,
social media marketing, display case design, sales commissions with the
profits left to the factory owner. Watch 2 is sold at a discount retailer.
Person A buys Watch 1 and Person B buys Watch 2.

Person A has had generally the same level (maybe slightly higher)
environmental impact. But in the process Person A has also enabled many
knowledge/creative workers who might otherwise have been under employed to
derive a source of revenue (and possibly a purpose). Basically its a pre-
commissioned objet d'art that can be mass produced and can be purchased by the
masses.

Where it somewhat falls apart is if the marketing is so good that Person B
buys Watch 1 and goes into debt in the process.

~~~
defterGoose
More likely than not, though, Person A owns the watch company and puts the
profits in an offshore tax Haven or uses them for stock buybacks, while
keeping the R&D budget flatlined.

------
Merrill
In Geneva it is easy to walk down the street and see watches selling for
prices that vary by over 4 orders of magnitude.

They all keep pretty good time. Some of the cheaper digital ones have much
more functionality than the expensive mechanical ones. It's clear that keeping
time is not the purpose of the watch.

~~~
Domenic_S
Correct. If you're looking for the most accurate timekeeper, well, you already
have it, it's your phone.

I got into watches because the engineering of the watch is amazing and
beautiful. The fact that someone could design a series of gears and springs
that correctly identifies not only the time but the day - including 31 day
months and leap years - is astonishing to me.

~~~
pdpi
There's an important factor here — Some of these things have intrinsic value
to the owner, and the social signalling can actually be undesirable (in that
you don't want to be associated with the group of people that ordinarily use
that item as a status symbol)

I currently use a smartwatch, but before that I had a cheap Seiko automatic
watch. The whole point of buying _that_ watch was precisely that having an
automatic (self-winding) mechanic watch on my wrist makes me the geek inside
me a tiny bit happier, because how freaking cool is an automatic watch?

I would've been willing to pay a fair bit more money for a fancier, more
precise (i.e. MORE GEARS!!!) watch over what I got, but I specifically did
_not_ want a showy "I'm a rich prick" watch, and there's just a vanishingly
small number of watches in that segment.

~~~
tcmb
Seiko itself makes very high-end watches, especially under the 'Grand Seiko'
moniker, some of which are as expensive as the well-known ones from the Swiss
manufacturers, but at the same time incredibly understated unless you're
really into the matter.

This can be a branding/marketing claim in itself, of course. There's an origin
story around their Spring Drive mechanism that goes something like a lonely
engineer-genius tinkering on it for 30 years until he had it perfected (don't
quote me on that). In that way, Seiko appeals to the 'Japanese
artisan/craftsmanship geek' who consciously chooses the non-mainstream brand.
Not sure if that is intentional marketing or truly authentic company identity.

------
timwaagh
Honestly what choice do I have. I'm not particularly attractive. So I buy nice
clothes to look the part. And take flak for it from family lol. They're not
even that expensive. I'm talking 300 eur jackets. It doesn't matter much but I
believe it does help. If it matters even once that I don't dress like a hobo
it's a big win for me. But you know what baffles me out of prada bags, Rolex
and Armani? Armani suits. To an outside observer they look like every other
suit.

~~~
goatinaboat
_To an outside observer they look like every other suit._

That depends on the observer, no? I certainly couldn’t tell a Prada handbag
from any other sort of handbags but I’m not the target audience, women buy
expensive handbags and shoes to impress other women, in particular other women
who are also into handbags and shoes. Similarly men who wear Armani suits are
signalling to other suit-wearers, Rolex watches are a signal to watch fans,
and so on.

~~~
timwaagh
Rolex ([https://m.rolex.com/watches.html](https://m.rolex.com/watches.html))
have a distinctive design, they print their logos on their product. It's quite
visible. Prada usually print their logo on their bags as well
([https://www.prada.com/nl/en/men/bags.html](https://www.prada.com/nl/en/men/bags.html)).
Giorgio Armani do not feature their logo on the outside of their suits
([https://www.armani.com/hk/armanicom/giorgio-
armani/men/suits](https://www.armani.com/hk/armanicom/giorgio-
armani/men/suits)). They don't have a distinctive design or a signature
pattern like Burberry's either. You would really have to know your stuff to
recognize one in the wild.

------
rjkennedy98
> [T]here is nothing wrong with this. “Decoration and adornment are neither
> higher nor lower than ‘real’ life,” she writes. “They are part of it.”

Couldn't you say this about anything? War is neither higher nor lower than
'real' life, it is a part of it. A true statement, but essentially nhilistic.

~~~
lonelappde
It's not nihilistic, it's relativistic. War is bad because I don't like it.
Things I like aren't bad by some supposed objective standard. My aesthetic in
jewelery isn't better or worse than your aesthetic in video games or books.

------
angarg12
Growing up in a working class family I never had access to luxury goods. In
the last few years, thanks to a middle class job and a switch on my mindset, I
had the privilege to be able to indulge in better quality goods than ever
before.

After looking into high fashion brands and searching the internet I'm
convinced of the following corollary: for almost any high street brand
product, there is an equivalent or better quality one produced for a fraction
of the price.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Absolutely. For instance kitchenware, you could go to the fancy high street
shop and get the lifestyle brands.

Or you could go to a kitchen supply store and get the same quality items that
the professionals use, which will be more expensive than the cheap department
store items, but will last a lifetime or more in an ordinary person's kitchen.

Or whisky. I could spend big bucks on the big hyped brands, and get perfectly
acceptable whisky, but probably sold at 40% ABV, chill filtered with caramel
color added.

Or I could buy from independent bottlers and get cask strength, non-chill
filtered whisky with no color added, usually at a lower price, for something
so much more interesting.

No, I won't have fancy bottles of MacAllan or whatever sitting on my shelf for
all to see, but I care a lot more about the whisky than the branded bottle
it's in.

------
sacomo
> As Will Wilkinson points out, the available data suggest that citizens of
> countries with liberal free-market economies are among the most satisfied,
> which explains why the United States, which exemplifies exactly the sort of
> amok consumerism that Layard and others worry about, is one of the happiest
> nations on Earth.

Pseudoscience.

~~~
KozmoNau7
There's a huge difference between superficial happiness and genuinely
fulfilling contentment and happiness.

------
m3kw9
People like new stuff, old things bore them, a perfectly luxury 2 year old
Benz car will Be replaced by a newer one. You know is a old model, so the
newer model also works out for status. They need it to entertain themselves,
directly and indirectly.

