9 ms·

The "specialness spiral" leads us to not use some ordinary objects (2021)

24 points by Overtonwindow 4y ago

derekp7 4y ago
I'd like to see this explored a bit further, and compare both reusable items (such as "the good silverware" that you only bring out for holiday dinners), vs items that get used up (consumables). And in the case of consumables, is there differences between ones that are compose of 100% disposable components (such as a stack of stationary paper) or something that has a rather nice component, and then parts that get used up (like a bound hard cover Moleskin or Fields notebook). For durable items (silverware, premium dishware) there is wear-and-tear that can dissuade daily use. But I think it is more that it makes the occasion itself feel more premium if you bring out the gold plated forks for that once a year meal, rather than concern over wearing that item out. On the other hand, for consumable items I think it is more of wanting to maximize the value from it (don't waste it on trivial things) rather than making the specific occasion more special.
- voisin 4y ago
  > there is wear-and-tear that can dissuade daily use. I like things made of materials that lend toward gaining a patina of use, becoming more attractive with wear and imperfection. Wabi-sabi.
- wrp 4y ago
  Can you think of any restricted-use items that do not degrade with use, so that the cost/trouble of replacement is not an issue? I don't think something like Christmas decorations would qualify. I don't use a hammer when I'm not pounding something and I don't use decorations when I'm not celebrating that holiday. "Restricted" would mean that you don't use it even in an appropriate situation.
  - throwaway777845 4y ago
    [dead]
dang 4y ago
Discussed at the time: The 'specialness spiral:' Why we label ordinary objects as too special to use - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771893 - Oct 2021 (79 comments)
wrp 4y ago
I think her experiment with the notebooks is misleading. This is a well known issue among stationery enthusiasts, that you are afraid to begin using a nice notebook because it means committing it to a specific use. People buy Moleskines or the like and are afraid to start using then. I got around that problem by switching to spiral notebooks, so I could tear out used pages and start a new task "fresh".
- throwanem 4y ago
  I've never understood this frame of mind. The notebook is a tool that's meant to be used. Part of learning to use a tool well is using it poorly, in order to learn what not to do. At least with a notebook you don't have to learn by missing the nail and not missing your thumb. Also quite seriously: Moleskines are garbage. Poor bindings, shit paper, absurdly overpriced - I honestly don't know how they sleep at night. A Mnemosyne N195A is $9 or $10 from a reputable seller, and much better made with quality paper. Or, for the same money as a ripoff Moleskine, you can get an A5 Rhodia Webnotebook and have something so beautiful and palpably well made that it's at least understandable not wanting to sully it with use. (But if you do get one, write in it anyway, dammit! The only way you misuse a notebook is to let it sit gathering dust.)
  - pavlov 4y ago
    At least for people with a designer/artist mindset, it's the fear of the blank canvas. People have an idealized end state in their mind: buying the notebook they imagine what its pages could look like a year from now, filled with insightful notes and breezy sketches. By committing something to paper on the first page, they're breaking that mental image. The notebook of their dreams won't exist and something mediocre is inevitably creeping in its place.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      I suppose that makes sense, with the nature of the idealization as the problem. It is a reasonable problem to have, for anyone who hasn't yet realized that 99.9% of the stuff you see from "bullet journal" Instagram was created for "bullet journal" Instagram as purely performative #vanlife on paper, and almost no one who actually keeps notes or diaries for their own sake actually does anything remotely similar.
jiggawatts 4y ago
I saw a talk where the gist was that objects are made to be used. They serve us, we don't serve them. A device or a tool will never thank you for taking care of it. An example is that professional photographers don't "baby" their cameras. The corners are dinged, everything is worn, and they pick them up in one hand without putting the strap around their neck to stop it falling. If it's too fragile to use, it's too fragile. My application of this philosophy is that I don't put a protective case on my iPhone. I typically buy the most expensive model, and I have dropped them, and even scratched the screen. But here's the thing: the bare phone is beautiful. It has a very well designed glass and metal body. It's shiny. It's elegant. It's as small as it can be made. If you put a plastic cover on it, the phone gets bigger, heavier, and uglier. You're sacrificing something (usability, comfort, appearance) for the benefit of the device, not for your own benefit. PS: Everyone I know who has a protective case on their phone has broken the screen at least once. Typically they just get it repaired for ~$100 and then... they still have their unblemished pretty phone again, which they put back inside an ugly case.
- mtsr 4y ago
  There’s a big difference here between people who can afford to replace the phone and those who can’t. And the way they’re marketed makes it really hard for some folks to buy anything but the latest and greatest, anyway.
  - danbruc 4y ago
    I would hope that it is not only being able to afford a replacement, taking care of your stuff not only saves money but also avoids waste and saves resources.
- ornornor 4y ago
  I put my (slippery) iPhones in cases because if I don’t they stop working. Your phone might not care that its screen is cracked but I very much do mind not being able to read the display and have to pay several hundreds to put it back the way it was vs spending 20$ or less on a case and screen protector so I can keep the original display intact and get 5-6 years of use out of the device. When I drop it, I just have to swap the screen protector (a 2$ consumable you can buy on aliexpress) which takes 10 minutes vs having to pay 100x as much and wait a few days to get my phone back to swap displays (and maybe get a knockoff display with inferior performance) IMHO it’s just wasteful not to spend so little time and money to make the device last several years longer.
jl6 4y ago
As discussed on TVTropes: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse
- aaron695 4y ago
  [dead]
mrob 4y ago
The same effect can keep you from getting the full value from objects. For example, you are allowed to write in your own books. If adding annotations helps you learn faster, that's probably worth more than the possible loss in value of the book. There might not even be any loss of value if somebody agrees your annotations are useful. And how often do you sell books anyway? There's also no schoolteacher waiting to put you in detention for vandalizing school property.
ben30 4y ago
The "endowment effect." It is the tendency for people to ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. This can make it difficult for people to part with their possessions, even if they are not using them or do not need them. The endowment effect has been observed in various contexts, from consumer behavior to negotiations and auctions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect
omnicognate 4y ago
I have an extremely nice Crombie overcoat that cost north of £1000. I wear it every day. I've always liked to have a coat of that sort of style in the winter, and have usually ended up buying a new one each year. They get a beating, as I wear them throughout the winter, workdays and weekends, and I generally only have one. It's a second skin. Coats usually can't stand up to that for long. I'm reaching the end of the third winter with the Crombie and it looks as good as new. It has always looked way better than any coat I've had. On several occasions random passers-by have commented on it, and I live in London where people generally don't do that sort of thing. It is a really rather fabulous coat, and I love wearing it. The thing is, after 3 winters the average cost of this coat per winter is now about the same as that of all the other coats I've bought over the years. Probably a bit less. As it weathers a few more years, which I'm confident it will, it will become cheaper than them. My father has a Crombie that I think he's worn like twice. What's the point? Buy well made, hardwearing clothes (if you can find them), and wear them. You and the world will be better off for it.
- adammarples 4y ago
  I think the hard wearing thing gets overplayed somewhat. I've never had a coat get destroyed in one year, except a cheap one once on a hard ski season. Pretty much any old thing lasts years and years if you're just walking around in it, maybe needing elbow patches or patched lining after a few years. I see people buy these "bag for life" overbuilt things with leather and toggles and stuff and yet my £10 polyester backpack has never broken. Shoes/boots are the exception, you will wear through the sole quickly.
  - omnicognate 4y ago
    That depends on what you want from your clothes. I like to dress smartly and prefer not to wear a coat that is visibly battered, even if it's comfortable and warm. You can make a valid moral argument that one should sacrifice sartorial preferences in favour of giving a garment a long life, but I get the same environmental benefit without making that sacrifice by buying a well made coat that continues to look new for years. Those who don't much care about appearances won't make the same choice, and that's absolutely fine. There is of course a prominent contingent on hn who think dressing smartly and spending money on nice things are both somehow immoral in and of themselves, but I have no time for them.
askvictor 4y ago
Have recently been considering this regarding merino (or any other wool) clothing. If you treat it 'special' and keep it in the wardrobe, chances are, moths will ruin it. But if you wear it regularly, they won't (unless you have a _bad_ infestation)
nicbou 4y ago
I remember when my mom got her first new car, and suddenly we parked at the end of the lot to avoid other people's doors scratching the paint. I drive an old economy shit box that I beat like a rented mule. I'm indifferent to dings and scratches. It has been raced more than most Porsches. It cost the tenth of the price of one. I put the rest of the money into driving it to interesting places. I took my not-adventure-bike halfway around the world and back with the money I didn't spend on a BMW. I shrugged after every fall, because it's not a BMW. Tools are meant to be used. If you can't use them as you please, you have the wrong tools.

24 points by Overtonwindow 4y ago

I'd like to see this explored a bit further, and compare both reusable items (such as "the good silverware" that you only bring out for holiday dinners), vs items that get used up (consumables). And in the case of consumables, is there differences between ones that are compose of 100% disposable components (such as a stack of stationary paper) or something that has a rather nice component, and then parts that get used up (like a bound hard cover Moleskin or Fields notebook). For durable items (silverware, premium dishware) there is wear-and-tear that can dissuade daily use. But I think it is more that it makes the occasion itself feel more premium if you bring out the gold plated forks for that once a year meal, rather than concern over wearing that item out. On the other hand, for consumable items I think it is more of wanting to maximize the value from it (don't waste it on trivial things) rather than making the specific occasion more special.

voisin 4y ago
> there is wear-and-tear that can dissuade daily use. I like things made of materials that lend toward gaining a patina of use, becoming more attractive with wear and imperfection. Wabi-sabi.
wrp 4y ago
Can you think of any restricted-use items that do not degrade with use, so that the cost/trouble of replacement is not an issue? I don't think something like Christmas decorations would qualify. I don't use a hammer when I'm not pounding something and I don't use decorations when I'm not celebrating that holiday. "Restricted" would mean that you don't use it even in an appropriate situation.
- throwaway777845 4y ago
  [dead]

dang 4y ago

Discussed at the time: The 'specialness spiral:' Why we label ordinary objects as too special to use - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28771893 - Oct 2021 (79 comments)

wrp 4y ago

I think her experiment with the notebooks is misleading. This is a well known issue among stationery enthusiasts, that you are afraid to begin using a nice notebook because it means committing it to a specific use. People buy Moleskines or the like and are afraid to start using then. I got around that problem by switching to spiral notebooks, so I could tear out used pages and start a new task "fresh".

throwanem 4y ago
I've never understood this frame of mind. The notebook is a tool that's meant to be used. Part of learning to use a tool well is using it poorly, in order to learn what not to do. At least with a notebook you don't have to learn by missing the nail and not missing your thumb. Also quite seriously: Moleskines are garbage. Poor bindings, shit paper, absurdly overpriced - I honestly don't know how they sleep at night. A Mnemosyne N195A is $9 or $10 from a reputable seller, and much better made with quality paper. Or, for the same money as a ripoff Moleskine, you can get an A5 Rhodia Webnotebook and have something so beautiful and palpably well made that it's at least understandable not wanting to sully it with use. (But if you do get one, write in it anyway, dammit! The only way you misuse a notebook is to let it sit gathering dust.)
- pavlov 4y ago
  At least for people with a designer/artist mindset, it's the fear of the blank canvas. People have an idealized end state in their mind: buying the notebook they imagine what its pages could look like a year from now, filled with insightful notes and breezy sketches. By committing something to paper on the first page, they're breaking that mental image. The notebook of their dreams won't exist and something mediocre is inevitably creeping in its place.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    I suppose that makes sense, with the nature of the idealization as the problem. It is a reasonable problem to have, for anyone who hasn't yet realized that 99.9% of the stuff you see from "bullet journal" Instagram was created for "bullet journal" Instagram as purely performative #vanlife on paper, and almost no one who actually keeps notes or diaries for their own sake actually does anything remotely similar.

jiggawatts 4y ago

I saw a talk where the gist was that objects are made to be used. They serve us, we don't serve them. A device or a tool will never thank you for taking care of it. An example is that professional photographers don't "baby" their cameras. The corners are dinged, everything is worn, and they pick them up in one hand without putting the strap around their neck to stop it falling. If it's too fragile to use, it's too fragile. My application of this philosophy is that I don't put a protective case on my iPhone. I typically buy the most expensive model, and I have dropped them, and even scratched the screen. But here's the thing: the bare phone is beautiful. It has a very well designed glass and metal body. It's shiny. It's elegant. It's as small as it can be made. If you put a plastic cover on it, the phone gets bigger, heavier, and uglier. You're sacrificing something (usability, comfort, appearance) for the benefit of the device, not for your own benefit. PS: Everyone I know who has a protective case on their phone has broken the screen at least once. Typically they just get it repaired for ~$100 and then... they still have their unblemished pretty phone again, which they put back inside an ugly case.

mtsr 4y ago
There’s a big difference here between people who can afford to replace the phone and those who can’t. And the way they’re marketed makes it really hard for some folks to buy anything but the latest and greatest, anyway.
- danbruc 4y ago
  I would hope that it is not only being able to afford a replacement, taking care of your stuff not only saves money but also avoids waste and saves resources.
ornornor 4y ago
I put my (slippery) iPhones in cases because if I don’t they stop working. Your phone might not care that its screen is cracked but I very much do mind not being able to read the display and have to pay several hundreds to put it back the way it was vs spending 20$ or less on a case and screen protector so I can keep the original display intact and get 5-6 years of use out of the device. When I drop it, I just have to swap the screen protector (a 2$ consumable you can buy on aliexpress) which takes 10 minutes vs having to pay 100x as much and wait a few days to get my phone back to swap displays (and maybe get a knockoff display with inferior performance) IMHO it’s just wasteful not to spend so little time and money to make the device last several years longer.

jl6 4y ago

As discussed on TVTropes: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse

aaron695 4y ago
[dead]

mrob 4y ago

The same effect can keep you from getting the full value from objects. For example, you are allowed to write in your own books. If adding annotations helps you learn faster, that's probably worth more than the possible loss in value of the book. There might not even be any loss of value if somebody agrees your annotations are useful. And how often do you sell books anyway? There's also no schoolteacher waiting to put you in detention for vandalizing school property.

ben30 4y ago

The "endowment effect." It is the tendency for people to ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. This can make it difficult for people to part with their possessions, even if they are not using them or do not need them. The endowment effect has been observed in various contexts, from consumer behavior to negotiations and auctions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

omnicognate 4y ago

I have an extremely nice Crombie overcoat that cost north of £1000. I wear it every day. I've always liked to have a coat of that sort of style in the winter, and have usually ended up buying a new one each year. They get a beating, as I wear them throughout the winter, workdays and weekends, and I generally only have one. It's a second skin. Coats usually can't stand up to that for long. I'm reaching the end of the third winter with the Crombie and it looks as good as new. It has always looked way better than any coat I've had. On several occasions random passers-by have commented on it, and I live in London where people generally don't do that sort of thing. It is a really rather fabulous coat, and I love wearing it. The thing is, after 3 winters the average cost of this coat per winter is now about the same as that of all the other coats I've bought over the years. Probably a bit less. As it weathers a few more years, which I'm confident it will, it will become cheaper than them. My father has a Crombie that I think he's worn like twice. What's the point? Buy well made, hardwearing clothes (if you can find them), and wear them. You and the world will be better off for it.

adammarples 4y ago
I think the hard wearing thing gets overplayed somewhat. I've never had a coat get destroyed in one year, except a cheap one once on a hard ski season. Pretty much any old thing lasts years and years if you're just walking around in it, maybe needing elbow patches or patched lining after a few years. I see people buy these "bag for life" overbuilt things with leather and toggles and stuff and yet my £10 polyester backpack has never broken. Shoes/boots are the exception, you will wear through the sole quickly.
- omnicognate 4y ago
  That depends on what you want from your clothes. I like to dress smartly and prefer not to wear a coat that is visibly battered, even if it's comfortable and warm. You can make a valid moral argument that one should sacrifice sartorial preferences in favour of giving a garment a long life, but I get the same environmental benefit without making that sacrifice by buying a well made coat that continues to look new for years. Those who don't much care about appearances won't make the same choice, and that's absolutely fine. There is of course a prominent contingent on hn who think dressing smartly and spending money on nice things are both somehow immoral in and of themselves, but I have no time for them.

askvictor 4y ago

Have recently been considering this regarding merino (or any other wool) clothing. If you treat it 'special' and keep it in the wardrobe, chances are, moths will ruin it. But if you wear it regularly, they won't (unless you have a _bad_ infestation)

nicbou 4y ago

I remember when my mom got her first new car, and suddenly we parked at the end of the lot to avoid other people's doors scratching the paint. I drive an old economy shit box that I beat like a rented mule. I'm indifferent to dings and scratches. It has been raced more than most Porsches. It cost the tenth of the price of one. I put the rest of the money into driving it to interesting places. I took my not-adventure-bike halfway around the world and back with the money I didn't spend on a BMW. I shrugged after every fall, because it's not a BMW. Tools are meant to be used. If you can't use them as you please, you have the wrong tools.