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What a great principle. One of those things I've felt for a long time but never express so well as John did. This idea extends to many other things, like... sp

• PaulHoule 6y ago
  I found a pretty big difference between a $20 tennis racket and a $60 racket. For one thing, any tennis racket is going to get loose if you play with it long enough. It cost more than $20 to redo the strings on a $20 tennis racket and $20 racket is going to send balls in totally the wrong direction in the next season.
  • diarmuidc 6y ago
    Sure but you have to use it long enough for the stings to get loose. What percentage of tennis racket purchases are used more than once?
    • franciscop 6y ago
      A high one? All of the tennis rackets I've seen are used until they are torn, broken, and been repaired multiple times (at least the cords). True I'm from Spain, but it's rare that rackets are used only once.
      • nicoburns 6y ago
        You probably don't see the ones that aren't used. They're stuck in storage in people's houses.
  • the_af 6y ago
    I guess the point is that if you find redoing the strings of your $20 racket more than once or twice, it means you're really using it and that warrants buying the expensive one. The idea is to avoid buying the expensive racket before you even know if you'll like playing tennis at all.
    • ajmurmann 6y ago
      Also the other half of the article's premise: you've return out the cheap racket. This means you are really using the thing, do don't just buy a better one but but a great one. Don't waste money working your way through mid-tier equipment first
  • wink 6y ago
    But you already know this, so you've probably played for a while. I think the meaning is if you start playing tennis, use the 20$ one. Then if you manage to wear it out, buy a good one. You shouldn't buy a 2nd 20$ one, ever.
• cainxinth 6y ago
  I use a similar heuristic that I’ve dubbed the 90% rule. In many cases, you can buy something that is 90% as good as the best product available for two thirds or even half the cost. If you want the very best, though, you have to pay through the nose. Ergo, you should always try the cheaper product first.
  • Infernal 6y ago
    You may have independently formulated the Pareto principle. The idea that you can get 80% of the theoretical max value for about 20% of the cost, but the next 20% of value requires 400% additional (the "missing 80%") cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
• ggambetta 6y ago
  Came here to say this. I've recently bought the cheapest bicycle and stand-up paddleboard I could find, precisely because of that reason. I don't know if the hobbies will "stick". Can always invest more later.
• xorcist 6y ago
  If you have the money, why waste it on low quality goods that will break? Buy better stuff instead and sell it or give it away when you find you don't use it anymore! Quality, mid range equipment. Not luxury. (The examples are unfortunate. For a runner it might suffice with $100 worth of equipment but not for a cyclist.)
  • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >If you have the money, why waste it on low quality goods that will break? Because oftentimes (depending on the type of product) they don't actually break, they're just slightly less luxurious to use.
• cmehdy 6y ago
  Sometimes you don't know what the minimum viable is because you are a beginner and don't know yourself well in that field. For example, I started running with shoes that were somewhat fine for beginners when I would double-check online, but happened to have limitations that affected people who practice a lot, or people who don't practice properly, or in my case undiagnosed issues (hypermobility of the knee). In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running. Another example I've encountered is with the guitar: the first one I picked up was this entry-entry-level thing that was viable for my budget but hindered my interest in practice because I didn't just encounter the physical pain you encounter when learning the guitar, but also the pain you get from badly adjusted guitars with high action and uneven frets and fairly crappy wood. I gave up on it a few times. But I eventually tried again and made the hypothesis that the hindrance was the guitar, and after testing that hypothesis I committed to buying a better one which enabled me to actually learn things that flat out seemed impossible on a crappy piece of wood. Years later, I'm far away from all my good guitars and I buy this entry-level thing because I miss playing.. and it's been hanging there mostly untouched because of how bad it just feels. I think it's much smarter to spend some time testing out things with other people's help and to borrow stuff for a while whenever possible, but on average to commit to something above entry-level if you're trying to be serious about anything. You'll save yourself a decent amount of time, you can give yourself a progress curve that looks much smoother, and when comes the time to truly upgrade you'll have something solid to use as a base to look at higher quality tools. edit: notwithstanding the fact that in many cases you have zero resell-value for physical tools that are entry-level, while something average will at least go for a reasonable percentage of the original price
  • itsoktocry 6y ago
    >In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running. It seems like you're drawing a direct causal relationship to what is a very complex chain of events over a long period of time. How can you be sure the problems would not have arisen regardless of what tool (shoe) you originally bought?
• MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  It's also related to the 'rule of least power': Choose the least powerful computer language suitable for a given purpose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_least_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_least_power
• throwaway98797 6y ago
  Disagree. I gave up on so many sports cause of faulty uncomfortable equipment. As child we had such shitty swim goggles that they would leak badly. For 10 years I swam without them and kept my eyes hurting eventually couldn’t take it and quit cause of eye pain. As adult with money bought a nice pair for $20 and realized not all goggles leak.
  • gk1 6y ago
    I don't think anybody is advocating for using crappy tools for 10 years, especially when a better option is available for just $20.
    • throwaway98797 6y ago
      That’s the most extreme example. I also stopped roller blading because the mid tier blades hurt. Or 20 year old cross country sky’s are bad. I think you should buy the best equipment you can afford. Sell if at loss if you don’t stick to it.
  • keithnz 6y ago
    well, if you apply the principle in the article, if they leaked badly, they would be regarded as inadequate, so you'd swap them with the best you could afford.
  • glouwbug 6y ago
    Nothing wrong with goggles. A child's face is just too small
• anthony_romeo 6y ago
  > You'll actually appreciate the difference then and be happier, and also know that you'll actually make good use of it. This also reflected my journey into watercolor painting. One day I bought a bunch of cheap watercolor paper and paints. I was able to just blow through those materials by lots of experimentation as I didn't have any fear of "wasting" the good paper and good paints. Only afterwards did I get a better understanding of why the more expensive paper and paints are worth the cost (e.g. better absorption of water by the paper, more vibrant pigments that mix together better). There's value in learning about the range of tool quality through the journey, as it will help create your own criterion for judging the quality of tools rather than assuming, say, that the cost of a tool is proportional to its quality.
• darkerside 6y ago
  An example where this really doesn't apply is bicycles. When you're trying to get a child to learn to ride a bike, if you get a cheap steel bike from a big box store, it will be twice as heavy as it needs to be and can make the activity itself so difficult and unpleasant that the child decides they don't enjoy the activity.
  • bluedino 6y ago
    I'd question a kid who couldn't stand to learn to ride a department store bike.
    • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Thanks to value engineering (gotta reduce BOM cost) a modern department store bike is probably substantially lighter than an equivalent "nice" children's bike from 30yr ago.
  • javier10e6 6y ago
    I learned to ride on the crappiest banana seat schwimm with a dynamo powering a heavy head-light. I love it. I graduated to a Rampar BMX and then a Rebel top top components including KKT pedals and and Oakley 0.5 grips. Man years later I got a Fuji Aluminum Road entry level bike for my teenager son and he rode it for a few months and tossed it. Not interested. It was a great entry level bike. I believe on the evolution of the rider, from a Huffy Wal-Mart to a Bianchi or Giant.
  • mmsimanga 6y ago
    I have to disagree. I guess cheap is relative to your economic standing. We and I am purposely using we because there were about six of us learning to ride on two bicycles. All kids on the street. Both had no breaks, after too many punctures we used a thick hosepipe in place of a tube. Hosepipe made for very bumpy and rather heavy bike. As an adult I was in a better financial position and bought my daughter the cheapest bike to learn on. It's been six months now and she is riding just fine.
• schwartzworld 6y ago
  The problem with this is that we live in a world where there are versions of things so cheap is to be unusable. you don't need a top-of-the-line skateboard to learn how to skate, but it's much harder to learn on a Walmart board, if not impossible. Bearings that don't roll, wheels that get flat spots, decks that are made of particle board and have no pop and l plastic bushings are all a huge impediment to doing the most basic parts of skating.
  • awakeasleep 6y ago
    You can extend this to guitars, too. On the cheapest models, the "action" (distance between strings and fretboard) is so long that only the most precise master of the craft can hope to play anything.
    • schwartzworld 6y ago
      True, although action is not a hard fix as it requires a file. It's a same more cheap guitars don't use zero frets, as they eliminate this problem.
• mumblemumble 6y ago
  > Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. Back when I used to go to mountain bike races, I noticed that you could roughly divide the people who rode $6000 bikes into two groups: Novices, who had no need for such a bike, and professionals, who get all their equipment from sponsors. The take away for me was that it never actually makes any practical sense to buy high-end equipment for myself. (Granted, I'm not self-employed.)
• sireat 6y ago
  There is a problem with buying the most expensive tool. 2nd or 3rd most expensive can be just as good if not better than the most expensive. Quite a bit of research might be required. (Speakers, Laptops, Bikes, Watches it applies to most consumer goods) It is like that joke about two rich people comparing the same tie: How much was that tie? - $500 You fool, you should have gone to the store across the street it is $1000 there! src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#New_Russians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#New_Russians
• baddox 6y ago
  This principle also doesn’t work well for things that have practically no ceiling to their cost, like clothing, cars, and furniture.
• sharadov 6y ago
  Tried this with a bunch of sports, but the change was most obvious in skiing. Used to rent, when I bought my first pair of boots, I went from a literal "Beginner" to "Intermediate". Balance and coordination went up 5X.
• Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  I used to have a friend who did a bit of contractor work, and he swore up and down by Sears “Craftsman” tools; not because they were the best (they were far from it), but because they had the best warranties. Every tool, he claimed, would wear out sooner or later, and Sears would always replace with a brand new one, no questions asked. I think there's some kind of point to be made here about broken economies and waste, but anyway it's a story that stuck with me.
  • labster 6y ago
    Sears eventually decided that not enough people returned the tools, and eventually started selling low-quality Craftsman products. I bought a water wand for spraying the yard and dog (mainly the dog, he really loved biting the spray), and had to return it 10 times for a replacement over the course of two years. Thing kept breaking in the metal rod. Then they had to give me a different design, got another 10 replacements that consistently broke below the handgrip. Eventually the store down the block from me closed, and Sears sold the Craftsman brand while it still had value.
• GuB-42 6y ago
  > Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000 As a general rule I disagree. If beginners don't feel the difference, that's because they only used the $100 equipment, they would be better off with the $1000 one. I first noticed that with skis. I am not a great skier by any mean, but just for kicks I tried renting the best equipment I could find and wow, what a difference it made. Everything was so much more precise. Obviously, I made many mistakes, but the outcome became clearer and more repeatable. I knew how I was wrong and it helped me improve. Poor quality equipment muddy things up, so it might feel like it is more forgiving (more on that later) but in reality, its just blends its own shortcoming with yours so you never know what went wrong, especially if you are a beginner and can't trust your own skills. There are good reasons for not buying expensive equipment right away. The biggest one is simply that if you don't know if it is the right thing for you, you may spend a lot of money for nothing, that's why some people recommend renting first. The other is that high-end stuff tend to be less forgiving, because they are marketed to experts. It is not that beginners won't enjoy that level of quality, but for the previous reason, there isn't a market for it.
  • KineticLensman 6y ago
    > I first noticed that with skis. I am not a great skier by any mean, but just for kicks I tried renting the best equipment I could find and wow, what a difference it made I had the exact same comment. Luckily with skiing you can often try hire skis for a day rather than committing to purchasing expensive kit. You may also benefit from advances in ski tech rather than being locked in for years to an expensive early purchase. This happened to me when carving skis replaced the long straight and stiff skis that were prevalent when I started. Ski boots, however, are a different story, especially if you have non-standard feet (e.g. flat arches, wide toes, etc). After a couple of painful early holidays with ill-fitting boots, often selected quickly in a busy hire shop, I purchased a reasonably expensive pair with a customised fit and the difference in comfort was astounding. In practical terms I could ski 'til the end of the day without getting painful feet.
  • celrod 6y ago
    Ping pong is also interesting. Expensive paddles have sticky rubber that can help experienced players control the spin on a ball. Cheap paddles don't have much grip. Very cheap paddles, the hard ones with short pips and no sponge, have virtually no grip. Grip and imparting spin are important for letting you control the ball, but it's also a double edged sword. It's easy to get someone who doesn't know how to counteract spin to hit the ball into the net or miss the table entirely if their paddle has some grip. Inexperienced players are thus often better off with the cheap paddles -- they don't know how to use it to their advantage, so they're better off being immune to its effects. That reminds me of the "expert beginner" posted and discussed on HackerNews not too long ago: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th... That is, cheap equipment can be a local optima that players can get stuck in. Disclaimer: I'm a novice.
• nytf3 6y ago
  skateboarding is a very bad example here - there is a noticeable difference in the quality/bearings of a "beginner" equipment that comes from Walmart/Target that costs ~60, and a proper setup from a skateboard shop that costs ~120. The beginner equipment is more likely to get you hurt by breaking, and the bearings will be very very slow. For other sports, running/biking/skiing/etc I think this difference is not as pronounced.
  • Spivak 6y ago
    It’s odd that you would end by assuming that other sports don’t suffer from the same problem. If you buy crappy shoes and run in them for extended periods you will hurt your feet and knees. If you try to bike harder than commuting on a cheap bike you’ll hurt yourself when the brake pads come loose. No idea about skiing but someone in this thread said they felt a noticeable difference, I’m not sure if it translates into safety though.
• tikhonj 6y ago
  This is harder than it sounds because the bottom of the market is often well below a minimum viable level, to the point that you're actively making learning harder for yourself if you go there. You might not feel the difference between $100 and $1000 shoes, but Walmart has $15 shoes which are probably bad enough they make it harder to start running and learn proper technique. I've experienced this pretty directly with skis. If you get the cheapest boots and skis you can, you'll find it harder to learn, to the point where your feet hurt at the end of the day. I pretty much associated skiing with pain until I got decent equipment. There is a level above which it isn't worth spending as a beginner, but it's a level that looks high to people on the outside. These days, I don't look for the cheapest tool I can find, I look for the cheapest tool people seriously use—which is often 5–10 times more expensive than the cheapest option. I've had enough experiences in the past sabotaging my own progression with awful tools that I know it's not worth it.
  • z3t4 6y ago
    You literally felt the pain though. And could appreciate the more expensive gear. But I agree with your point. In cross country skieing its much more fun if you have better gear. Some sports and professions is just gear dependent. You won't win a rally with a slow car.
    • ubercow13 6y ago
      It’s not just feeling the difference, it’s preventing injury and allowing yourself to progress at a speed which keeps you interested at all. I only finally started running regularly after years of trying and failing after buying proper shoes. The difference was immediate.
      • smoll 6y ago
        What made you keep trying running even though you failed multiple times at it? And had you failed even with excellent running shoes, would you have even kept trying? (Maybe you would have thought: "Well, I already have the best shoes. If I still can't get good, maybe I should give up forever.")
• snvzz 6y ago
  I see this done a lot with headphones. Sennheiser HD600 cost around $280, are comfortable, do sound really accurate and pleasant, effectively last forever, are full modular with all pieces sold individually in the odd event the user drops them from a building or steps on them, and are effectively the market peak in value/price. But people keep buying uncomfortable foul-sounding sub-$100 headphones that last a few months at best.
  • vibrolax 6y ago
    Or they can buy Sony MDR 7506 for about $100, and they will sound ok and last 20+ years. At least mine have, and only the ear cushions have needed replacement. I get more joy finding and using durable, decently performing products that provide excellent value. The art is learning, for any category of equipment, how much you need to spend to obtain good long-term value.
    • kazinator 6y ago
      I'm still using the same pair of Sony headphones from circa 1997, that were just under $100. Nothing has needed any replacement. The ground connection on the 1/8" jack got finicky early on in the life of the cable (you have to bend it a little this way or that to get audio in both ears and with the channels separated), but in the 20 years after that problem appeared, it has not deteriorated one iota. You have to fiddle with it today with exactly the same pressure and nuance as in the year 2000. I used the 1/4" adapter from time to time, like going directly into a synthesizer keyboard. Given 30 minutes to search around the house, I can probably find that thing.
    • snvzz 6y ago
      >Or they can buy Sony MDR 7506 for about $100, and they will sound ok and last 20+ years. I happen to also own a pair of 7506. Do note these are a closed set, and they are, by far, not comparable with HD600. Basically like night and day. In the words of a coworker who also owns 7506, after trying my HD600: "Now the 7506 sound to me like an AM radio." Still, I don't disagree they're decent as closed headphones at <$100, particularly if you only care about the mid range. But they're relatively colored, despite their popularity as "monitors", and much worse than the Japan-only mdr-cd900st classic.
• pryelluw 6y ago
  About two uears ago I got into mountain biking. Went into a bile shop with and spent $300 on a mountain-ish bike and a helmet. I thought about upgrading multiple times because "I had outgrown the bike". An upgrade was $1200. So, I decided to only upgrade if I could not beat my best time on a specific short trail. Well, I kept going faster and fastee. Untill the tires were the obvious thing holding me back. I upgraded the tires for $20 (clearance sale) and tested again. Still faster. Ended up not buying the new $1200 bike.
  • Apotheos 6y ago
    Buy used! You get the upgrade without having to spend as much money. I do think the upgrade from a new $300 bike to a used (originally) $1200 bike would be very worth it. I owned a pretty cheat big box bike, an $800 Kona Stuff (probably don't even make that anymore, and a $2700 Santa Cruz Bullet. Every time the upgrsde made a big difference and you could really feel the quality in what you were getting. I will say the upgrade from hardtail $800 bike to dual suspension $2,700 bike was a MASSIVE increase in performance.