3 ms·
Doing things on principle is inevitably less economically efficient, otherwise it would be indistinguishable from making an optimal selection regardless of prin
by qhwudbebd 7y ago
Doing things on principle is inevitably less economically efficient, otherwise it would be indistinguishable from making an optimal selection regardless of principle? I don’t think that implies you should discard all principles.
I’ve done the same thing with a £60k piece of farm machinery recently. I took the time to write to the more opaque dealers, apologising for not considering them but noting that their pricing wasn’t transparent, and therefore they lost the business regardless of the price they would have quoted.
If more of us don’t do this, we’ll be stuck with sleazy salesmen and the “how much can we extract from this gullible customer” model indefinitely.
- Brian_K_White 7y agoThank you. This is not only taking the long view, but really a form of public service. A million other selfish thoughtless people have it as good as they do, only because some number of less-thoughtless people stood on principle once in a while and simply demanded better rather than taking the 100% path of least resistance 100% of the time.
- edmundsauto 7y agoAn alternative narrative is that standing on principle (for things like this) is at best orthogonal to the reasons I (us) have it as good as we do. Just because the stories about people standing on principle are sticky doesn't mean they cause good outcomes. (Also, there's the other side of the coin, where people who stand on principles cause great harm, intentionally or otherwise.)