19 ms·

The Diderot Effect

183 points by henrik_w 4y ago

crazygringo 4y ago
Huh. I definitely experienced that with OXO brand tools in my kitchen. Once I had a few of them, the rest of my kitchen tools seemed so cheap/crappy in comparison, now they're somehow 80% OXO after a few years. The Diderot Effect is real.
- sacnoradhq 4y ago
  "Collect them all!" ;) The lettuce spinner is where it's at. The top of the new model comes apart completely whereas the older one couldn't be cleaned. I'm too cheap and lazy to replace what works, although I have: - a brand unknown manual edgeless can opener - a "Rabbit" wine corker - a brand unknown manual cheese grater for parm - automatic, USB-rechargeable pepper mill - mortar and pestle for grinding damiana - aeropress with reusable filters - sunbeam t-35 - instant pot duo crisp Trying to make everything match is an expensive and unnecessary obsession. There's a bohemian charm in mismatched socks and things that don't fit a sterile, boring Architectural Digest environment.
  - kiliantics 4y ago
    On the topic of tin openers, I'll bury one of my most strongly-held kitchen beliefs here -- almost all openers that get produced and used are utter rubbish. The only kind that is any good is a Hebeldosenöffner, or "lever tin opener", like the kind here: https://www.westmark.de/de-de/hebeldosen%C3%B6ffner-original-sieger-11212270 https://www.westmark.de/de-de/hebeldosen%C3%B6ffner-original... It's fun to ask people to try to figure out how to use it. Once you see how it works, you can see that it's ingenious. It's quicker and easier to use than other kinds and it has only a single moving part and no edges to dull. It can easily last generations.
- detourdog 4y ago
  OXO was founded as a human factors kitchen accessory company. The company is trying to put more thought into their products then the competition.
leoxiong 4y ago
Interesting. I guess this partly explains lifestyle inflation. Also came across this blog[1] after reading the wiki page. [1] https://jamesclear.com/diderot-effect https://jamesclear.com/diderot-effect
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
k7vin 4y ago
Diderot Effect and a few more points re: our consumption habits. Via Dr Laurie Santos [cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University] and her podcast about 'demonic possessions': https://objet.substack.com/p/demonic-possessions https://objet.substack.com/p/demonic-possessions
lordleft 4y ago
Fascinating. I guess there’s an element of aspiration in purchasing things…we are partially constructing the person we want to be
- toyg 4y ago
  The fashion industry has known this for hundreds of years, as demonstrated by Diderot himself.
totetsu 4y ago
This was referenced at the end of the recent Japanese Toilet episode of South Park.
noduerme 4y ago
There's probably a corollary, although I don't know the name for it. I still have one pair of shoes and a week's worth of shirts and underwear, an old projector and 10 year old speakers although I own a house and have a net worth over $1m. I've certainly felt the sudden gravitational pull that comes from having one nice new toy enter your life. It manifests as a sense that "wow, this little overpriced thing is so enjoyable... why am I sitting on a pile of savings and denying myself things that would make my life so much nicer?" Slowly, I started spending $20 for a bag of coffee beans I really like instead of $12 for something that's just okay. But it has to stop somewhere. I realize I only buy the big ticket items when I either am seriously depressed or feel like I'm going to die soon, or both. The rest of the time, money in the bank is more interesting to me than nicer stuff. This is probably a phobia of spending money that I'll go to my grave with.
- dmix 4y ago
  This sounds like a useful corollary for a high income individual that should apply generally, but if you watch videos on the "death of the middle class" videos you'll learn that the middle class in America didn't actually die recently, its actually just as big as it ever was, it's just stuff like spending on cars and housing is wayyy more expensive than ever so even us well paid software people are functionally poorer than we should be. https://youtu.be/0sj-8pjt9Xk https://youtu.be/0sj-8pjt9Xk IRL the vast majority of these consumer spending things don't play a massively damaging role in the average consumers life / upward mobility... at least relative to history or other regions. But a few things do. When you start getting serious about personal finance people tend to obsess about the small less important things we're wasteful about. Mostly because it's more obvious locally and easy to feel guilty about (consumer electronics, clothes, restaurants, etc). But in practice for healthy well employed workers 80-90% of the time self-imposed poverty comes down to two things: cars and renting housing. Cars ranks #1 easily in terms of actionable things, if you asked 90% of middle class households making >$100k you'll find car loans/costs are easily the biggest burden on disposable income. People buy cars they can't afford and getting $30k+ loans plus the associated costs of nice cars (damaging them, insurance, etc) it becomes very apparently the biggest thing stopping someone from having extra money that could be invested in 10x+ more value like paying off high interest credit card loans (rather than adding another +interest car loan) or simply investing in better things like real estate, small businesses, personal development, stocks, etc etc. The other elephant in the room that far, far outweighs spending on vanity consumerism is housing. This one involves plenty of personal responsibility but of all the things in Americans/western life this is the least to blame individuals. Stopping Americans from buying stupid expensive cars is a very hard mostly social problem, but housing is something that could be solved much more simply through stuff like ending zoning and anti-NIMBY laws. We could gain plenty from working on the smaller tier consumer stuff at the same time (every dollar really does matter and you don't know until you track it) but education about cars and gov action on increasing housing supply would be the most productive work in the short term.
Borrible 4y ago
What's more expensive, to be rich or to be poor?
- riffraff 4y ago
  This calls for Comes Boot Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness! > The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
  - braingenious 4y ago
    >Comes Boot Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness! Comes Boot
  - toyg 4y ago
    That's why consumer finance unlocked new worlds to the savvy: because it allowed non-capital-owners to make capital investments on durable goods, for a relatively small price. Unfortunately this is not explained properly, so people think it's just a shortcut to instant gratification.
- dahart 4y ago
  Depends on what you mean by ‘expensive’ ;) … is it absolute dollars, or relative dollars (e.g. fraction of income), or is it time spent earning each dollar, or the effects on health, happiness, and longevity from not having enough dollars? Looking at that list, there might only be one (misleading?) metric that makes being rich more expensive than being poor. But how rich and how poor are we talking?
great_psy 4y ago
I think this some of this is actually forced upon us by technological advancement too. I started doing photography over the pandemic, I started with a 2009 dslr, because that’s what I had lying around. Because I did not even know how to expose a photo, it was great, and it felt like it did everything I wanted. I was very used to the layout, the functions, and although it was only 12MP, it took some of my favourite photos. All with lenses worth <300$. Later I received a new mirrorless, 4K shooting, 24MP camera. I changed brands, So some of it is on me, but I had to buy new lenses as well. Getting new $150 lenses was not possible, and it felt wrong to put $150 lens on a $2000 camera. So I got a few lenses to match. Not only that, but my 2012 MacBook Air was not able to run the latest Lightroom, and the older Lightroom version I had was not able to decode the new raw image format. So I had to get a new computer as well. All in all, a gift, that although is very much appreciated, cost me a lot more than the gift itself. I have no regrets now, the newer sensors, the better tracking, the better lenses, all allow me to take much better photos. But if I would have stayed with my old camera, I would have never known what I was missing.
- mo_42 4y ago
  Sounds more like technology-related reasons to buy stuff. Specifically, non-existing standards. Not sure if it’s part of the Diderot Effect.
- lynx23 4y ago
  Musicians, esp. guitarists have a special acronym for this state of mind: GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
  - peepee1982 4y ago
    In my mind studio owners are the main group who suffer from this. There are so few pieces of gear that will significantly improve your work compared to using the stuff you already have and know how to use. But people still spend a fortune on all kinds of hardware and software in the fear of missing out on some magical device that will give them a shortcut to great results. It's mental.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
apienx 4y ago
The effect explains many a divorce. Identity is much more fluid than most people realize (corollary: strong values and principles are uncommon).
BaudouinVH 4y ago
My native language is french and I'm flabbergasted to see that this wiki page hos no french translation. I plan to create it.
- BaudouinVH 4y ago
  and voilà : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effet_Diderot https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effet_Diderot
  - Tepix 4y ago
    Bravo à vous !
eimrine 4y ago
The "Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown" is a life-changing short story for me. I considered this as a nice introduce of Stoicism in my life. Old dresses are so more comfortable especially because I do not need to care about minor issues with it and because it forces me to stop considering about my look as something important at all. My work is what really important.
- yks 4y ago
  on the other hand your work is going to be done by AI soon, so here’s that
  - eimrine 4y ago
    Oh no dear man, you are not right in defining of what the work is. I mean that certainly AI will do what you and me are doing for our living. But neither mine work nor yours is limited by professional means. The most important work is to be a wise man and that is what Stoicism is all about. At least human culture and AI one ought to coexist for a while .
sammalloy 4y ago
Fascinating article. This has happened to me several times, the most notable of which occurred when I spent an unusual sum of money on a fine Italian shirt for a wedding reception, and everything went crazy after that. I opened my closet one day and I had thousands of dollars of shirts, all of which I wore, but I couldn’t afford. Most of those shirts are gone now, due to their limited shelf life, but as luck would have it, the original Italian shirt was so well made, it’s still in my closet and looks brand new. I’ve worn it and washed it a hundred times and it looks as good as the day I bought it. I’ve never had another shirt like it.
- philovivero 4y ago
  I really wish I could figure out the formula. I have had so many shirts that I wear for a year or two, then they're dead. But there's this one shirt I bought back in 1999 that still now, today, looks about the same as it did then (I have photographs). I don't wear it any less than any of the other shirts. Just somehow... year after year... it remains decent. I wish I could go custom-make 20 shirts out of the same material and with the same techniques as this shirt. I'd never need another shirt again in my life!
gwd 4y ago
How strange -- I'd never heard of the Diderot effect, but it was exactly the topic of a book I had when I was a kid. It starts with an older couple who are poor, and have shabby worn-out things, but are happy. One day the man breaks his shoelace, so he buys a new one. But then it makes his old shoe look shabby, so he buys new shoes. But then his clothes look shabby, so he buys new clothes. But then his wife feels shabby, so she buys new clothes. But then all their furniture looks shabby, so they buy new furniture. But to buy the new furniture they had to borrow a bunch of money; and of course they can't afford the payments, so everyone comes and takes all the new things away, and they're happy and poor again. EDIT: Although, according to Wikipedia, the term "Diderot Effect" was coined by a paper published in 1988. I don't remember when I saw the children's book, but must have been published before, or very soon after, that paper was published.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  The term is based on an 18th century essay by Diderot. So while the term is young, the idea is at least about 250 years old.
- mcphage 4y ago
  Heh, I came into these comments to mention that very book, because this article reminded me of the exact same thing. I bought a (used) copy a few years back for my kids because I like the illustrator. It's "As Right as Right Can Be", by Anne Rose, illustrated by Arnold Lobel. My guess is that it was inspired by Diderot's essay? ... hmmm, turns out it was published in the 70s, so not based on the paper describing the effect.
eternityforest 4y ago
Tech has this effect very strongly since almost all modern tech is part of multiple ecosystems. Luckily it's nowhere near as expensive as true luxury goods, and often seems to almost replace their role, so overall consumption and expense isn't as bad as one might expect.
pgt 4y ago
Reminds me of good coffee, high-fidelity audio and Lisp (Paredit, specifically). Once you have heard well-tuned, low distortion audio, it is difficult to enjoy a badly-tuned, distorted system. The curse of knowledge.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  Fortunately, you can usually indulge your Lisp habit for free.
shmde 4y ago
Damn didn't realise that I went through this. Had a broken mouse, bought an expensive mouse to replace it. Mouse looked better than my keyboard. Ditched my membrane keyboard with a Mechanical keyboard. Read that different switches make different sound. Bought a new pack of switches. Someone recommended that those switches work best with XDA profile keycaps. Went ahead and bought that. This effect is real.
parrot333 4y ago
[dead]
tobr 4y ago
I can’t remember where I heard this quote, but I often think about it: “I don’t like to buy things for my things”. For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. Many of those things will in turn require their own things, and so on. It’s interesting to consider the longest thing chains you have in your life, so you can avoid making them longer or avoid starting new ones.
- cainxinth 4y ago
  > For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. I have a family friend who coined a saying I repeat often: “I never met a house that wasn’t a thief.”
- nzealand 4y ago
  > For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. Many of those things will in turn require their own things, and so on. ...then eventually, you need a bigger house to keep all those things in.
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    > The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything. etc
    - nicolas_t 4y ago
      Me and my wife have recently tried to sell as much as possible after realising this. Anything we know we won't need right now we sell so that we stop just having so many stuff...
- replyifuagree 4y ago
  Apple ecosystem is like that. Especially if you have a family, that chain gets long, wide and each thing comes with a premium pricetag.
dandare 4y ago
To save this planet, we need to make frugality sexi again
hgsgm 4y ago
Load-balance your luxury, don't min-max.
5mv2 4y ago
As a European, I really appreciate San Fransisco deca-millionaires intentionally tastelessness. I remember a podcast of Tim Ferris where he was boasting that people often complimented him on his Vans black shoes because "they could pass as dress shoes". No one past the age of 15 would be so tasteless as to share such a compliment, and that's what's beautiful about SF. SF also happens to be the place where I heard a deceptively powerful method to get rid of stuff 1. Put all your stuff in boxes 2. Pick items out when you need them 3. After a year, throw everything you don't use
- britzkopf 4y ago
  I can't decide if this is a humble brag or very backhanded compliment. Either way, the message is clear... Europeans are naturally endowed with taste and sophistication! :-o
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    European deca-millionares*. I took it as commentary on class mobility, or the lack thereof.
  - mkipper 4y ago
    That's not my read of it at all. You could make the exact same comment without any mention of Europe -- it's pretty unlikely that a hedge fund manager in NY would hear that comment from someone in their social circle.
  - 5mv2 4y ago
    It's a genuine compliment! Sophistication is great, but not when it's mostly aimed at increasing social status, which is a zero sum game. Like how mkipper read it.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > 1. Put all your stuff in boxes 2. Pick items out when you need them 3. After a year, throw everything you don't use That method is normally known as "moving", plenty of people practice it once in a while but it's more popular for people that rent a home.
gspencley 4y ago
Been there. Most recently with filmmaking gear. Started with a new camera, I knew I'd need lenses and accessories and budgeted accordingly. What I didn't expect was the external monitor, mounting cage, lens filters, haze/fog machine and some of the lighting-related gear that I ended up getting. Then I found myself going down the vintage lens rabbit hole ... luckily by that time I saw what was happening and cut myself off lol.
- slickdork 4y ago
  Smart to cut yourself off. Unless you're a production company, it makes most sense to rent the gear for a planned shoot.
  - gspencley 4y ago
    Even a production company would rent gear quite often. But I'm a hobbyist, have no planned shoot and hate the hassle of renting anything, broadly speaking.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Why would vintage lenses be a problem? I have two, both very cheap, excellent build quality, and bad flare handling. Compared to all the other stuff you mentioned, vintage lenses will likely hold value and can be sold anytime in the future.
  - gspencley 4y ago
    Vintage lenses weren't a problem it's just where I chose, arbitrarily, to draw the line. I had already spent quite a bit up to that point. I'm still absolutely interested in vintage lenses, I just need to slow down a bit lol
trilobyte 4y ago
Warhammer 40k players <sweating intensifies>
bananatron 4y ago
Try to only acquire stuff that looks kind of broken and life becomes cheaper.
notShabu 4y ago
Photography and similar hobbies tends to have a "quality bottleneck" A full frame camera needs more expensive bigger lenses which needs a higher quality tripod, larger and faster memory cards, more powerful computer for the editing, etc... Improving one thing requires improving everything since the final output is limited by a "bottleneck" The Diderot Effect seems to point out a similar "identity" bottleneck where a higher quality(status) identity is bottlenecked by the lowest quality frustration.

183 points by henrik_w 4y ago

Huh. I definitely experienced that with OXO brand tools in my kitchen. Once I had a few of them, the rest of my kitchen tools seemed so cheap/crappy in comparison, now they're somehow 80% OXO after a few years. The Diderot Effect is real.

sacnoradhq 4y ago
"Collect them all!" ;) The lettuce spinner is where it's at. The top of the new model comes apart completely whereas the older one couldn't be cleaned. I'm too cheap and lazy to replace what works, although I have: - a brand unknown manual edgeless can opener - a "Rabbit" wine corker - a brand unknown manual cheese grater for parm - automatic, USB-rechargeable pepper mill - mortar and pestle for grinding damiana - aeropress with reusable filters - sunbeam t-35 - instant pot duo crisp Trying to make everything match is an expensive and unnecessary obsession. There's a bohemian charm in mismatched socks and things that don't fit a sterile, boring Architectural Digest environment.
- kiliantics 4y ago
  On the topic of tin openers, I'll bury one of my most strongly-held kitchen beliefs here -- almost all openers that get produced and used are utter rubbish. The only kind that is any good is a Hebeldosenöffner, or "lever tin opener", like the kind here: https://www.westmark.de/de-de/hebeldosen%C3%B6ffner-original-sieger-11212270 https://www.westmark.de/de-de/hebeldosen%C3%B6ffner-original... It's fun to ask people to try to figure out how to use it. Once you see how it works, you can see that it's ingenious. It's quicker and easier to use than other kinds and it has only a single moving part and no edges to dull. It can easily last generations.
detourdog 4y ago
OXO was founded as a human factors kitchen accessory company. The company is trying to put more thought into their products then the competition.

leoxiong 4y ago

Interesting. I guess this partly explains lifestyle inflation. Also came across this blog[1] after reading the wiki page. [1] https://jamesclear.com/diderot-effect https://jamesclear.com/diderot-effect

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

k7vin 4y ago

Diderot Effect and a few more points re: our consumption habits. Via Dr Laurie Santos [cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University] and her podcast about 'demonic possessions': https://objet.substack.com/p/demonic-possessions https://objet.substack.com/p/demonic-possessions

lordleft 4y ago

Fascinating. I guess there’s an element of aspiration in purchasing things…we are partially constructing the person we want to be

toyg 4y ago
The fashion industry has known this for hundreds of years, as demonstrated by Diderot himself.

totetsu 4y ago

This was referenced at the end of the recent Japanese Toilet episode of South Park.

noduerme 4y ago

There's probably a corollary, although I don't know the name for it. I still have one pair of shoes and a week's worth of shirts and underwear, an old projector and 10 year old speakers although I own a house and have a net worth over $1m. I've certainly felt the sudden gravitational pull that comes from having one nice new toy enter your life. It manifests as a sense that "wow, this little overpriced thing is so enjoyable... why am I sitting on a pile of savings and denying myself things that would make my life so much nicer?" Slowly, I started spending $20 for a bag of coffee beans I really like instead of $12 for something that's just okay. But it has to stop somewhere. I realize I only buy the big ticket items when I either am seriously depressed or feel like I'm going to die soon, or both. The rest of the time, money in the bank is more interesting to me than nicer stuff. This is probably a phobia of spending money that I'll go to my grave with.

dmix 4y ago
This sounds like a useful corollary for a high income individual that should apply generally, but if you watch videos on the "death of the middle class" videos you'll learn that the middle class in America didn't actually die recently, its actually just as big as it ever was, it's just stuff like spending on cars and housing is wayyy more expensive than ever so even us well paid software people are functionally poorer than we should be. https://youtu.be/0sj-8pjt9Xk https://youtu.be/0sj-8pjt9Xk IRL the vast majority of these consumer spending things don't play a massively damaging role in the average consumers life / upward mobility... at least relative to history or other regions. But a few things do. When you start getting serious about personal finance people tend to obsess about the small less important things we're wasteful about. Mostly because it's more obvious locally and easy to feel guilty about (consumer electronics, clothes, restaurants, etc). But in practice for healthy well employed workers 80-90% of the time self-imposed poverty comes down to two things: cars and renting housing. Cars ranks #1 easily in terms of actionable things, if you asked 90% of middle class households making >$100k you'll find car loans/costs are easily the biggest burden on disposable income. People buy cars they can't afford and getting $30k+ loans plus the associated costs of nice cars (damaging them, insurance, etc) it becomes very apparently the biggest thing stopping someone from having extra money that could be invested in 10x+ more value like paying off high interest credit card loans (rather than adding another +interest car loan) or simply investing in better things like real estate, small businesses, personal development, stocks, etc etc. The other elephant in the room that far, far outweighs spending on vanity consumerism is housing. This one involves plenty of personal responsibility but of all the things in Americans/western life this is the least to blame individuals. Stopping Americans from buying stupid expensive cars is a very hard mostly social problem, but housing is something that could be solved much more simply through stuff like ending zoning and anti-NIMBY laws. We could gain plenty from working on the smaller tier consumer stuff at the same time (every dollar really does matter and you don't know until you track it) but education about cars and gov action on increasing housing supply would be the most productive work in the short term.

Borrible 4y ago

What's more expensive, to be rich or to be poor?

riffraff 4y ago
This calls for Comes Boot Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness! > The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- braingenious 4y ago
  >Comes Boot Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness! Comes Boot
- toyg 4y ago
  That's why consumer finance unlocked new worlds to the savvy: because it allowed non-capital-owners to make capital investments on durable goods, for a relatively small price. Unfortunately this is not explained properly, so people think it's just a shortcut to instant gratification.
dahart 4y ago
Depends on what you mean by ‘expensive’ ;) … is it absolute dollars, or relative dollars (e.g. fraction of income), or is it time spent earning each dollar, or the effects on health, happiness, and longevity from not having enough dollars? Looking at that list, there might only be one (misleading?) metric that makes being rich more expensive than being poor. But how rich and how poor are we talking?

great_psy 4y ago

I think this some of this is actually forced upon us by technological advancement too. I started doing photography over the pandemic, I started with a 2009 dslr, because that’s what I had lying around. Because I did not even know how to expose a photo, it was great, and it felt like it did everything I wanted. I was very used to the layout, the functions, and although it was only 12MP, it took some of my favourite photos. All with lenses worth <300$. Later I received a new mirrorless, 4K shooting, 24MP camera. I changed brands, So some of it is on me, but I had to buy new lenses as well. Getting new $150 lenses was not possible, and it felt wrong to put $150 lens on a $2000 camera. So I got a few lenses to match. Not only that, but my 2012 MacBook Air was not able to run the latest Lightroom, and the older Lightroom version I had was not able to decode the new raw image format. So I had to get a new computer as well. All in all, a gift, that although is very much appreciated, cost me a lot more than the gift itself. I have no regrets now, the newer sensors, the better tracking, the better lenses, all allow me to take much better photos. But if I would have stayed with my old camera, I would have never known what I was missing.

mo_42 4y ago
Sounds more like technology-related reasons to buy stuff. Specifically, non-existing standards. Not sure if it’s part of the Diderot Effect.
lynx23 4y ago
Musicians, esp. guitarists have a special acronym for this state of mind: GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
- peepee1982 4y ago
  In my mind studio owners are the main group who suffer from this. There are so few pieces of gear that will significantly improve your work compared to using the stuff you already have and know how to use. But people still spend a fortune on all kinds of hardware and software in the fear of missing out on some magical device that will give them a shortcut to great results. It's mental.
- The_Colonel 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

apienx 4y ago

The effect explains many a divorce. Identity is much more fluid than most people realize (corollary: strong values and principles are uncommon).

BaudouinVH 4y ago

My native language is french and I'm flabbergasted to see that this wiki page hos no french translation. I plan to create it.

BaudouinVH 4y ago
and voilà : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effet_Diderot https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effet_Diderot
- Tepix 4y ago
  Bravo à vous !

eimrine 4y ago

The "Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown" is a life-changing short story for me. I considered this as a nice introduce of Stoicism in my life. Old dresses are so more comfortable especially because I do not need to care about minor issues with it and because it forces me to stop considering about my look as something important at all. My work is what really important.

yks 4y ago
on the other hand your work is going to be done by AI soon, so here’s that
- eimrine 4y ago
  Oh no dear man, you are not right in defining of what the work is. I mean that certainly AI will do what you and me are doing for our living. But neither mine work nor yours is limited by professional means. The most important work is to be a wise man and that is what Stoicism is all about. At least human culture and AI one ought to coexist for a while .

sammalloy 4y ago

Fascinating article. This has happened to me several times, the most notable of which occurred when I spent an unusual sum of money on a fine Italian shirt for a wedding reception, and everything went crazy after that. I opened my closet one day and I had thousands of dollars of shirts, all of which I wore, but I couldn’t afford. Most of those shirts are gone now, due to their limited shelf life, but as luck would have it, the original Italian shirt was so well made, it’s still in my closet and looks brand new. I’ve worn it and washed it a hundred times and it looks as good as the day I bought it. I’ve never had another shirt like it.

philovivero 4y ago
I really wish I could figure out the formula. I have had so many shirts that I wear for a year or two, then they're dead. But there's this one shirt I bought back in 1999 that still now, today, looks about the same as it did then (I have photographs). I don't wear it any less than any of the other shirts. Just somehow... year after year... it remains decent. I wish I could go custom-make 20 shirts out of the same material and with the same techniques as this shirt. I'd never need another shirt again in my life!

gwd 4y ago

How strange -- I'd never heard of the Diderot effect, but it was exactly the topic of a book I had when I was a kid. It starts with an older couple who are poor, and have shabby worn-out things, but are happy. One day the man breaks his shoelace, so he buys a new one. But then it makes his old shoe look shabby, so he buys new shoes. But then his clothes look shabby, so he buys new clothes. But then his wife feels shabby, so she buys new clothes. But then all their furniture looks shabby, so they buy new furniture. But to buy the new furniture they had to borrow a bunch of money; and of course they can't afford the payments, so everyone comes and takes all the new things away, and they're happy and poor again. EDIT: Although, according to Wikipedia, the term "Diderot Effect" was coined by a paper published in 1988. I don't remember when I saw the children's book, but must have been published before, or very soon after, that paper was published.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
The term is based on an 18th century essay by Diderot. So while the term is young, the idea is at least about 250 years old.
mcphage 4y ago
Heh, I came into these comments to mention that very book, because this article reminded me of the exact same thing. I bought a (used) copy a few years back for my kids because I like the illustrator. It's "As Right as Right Can Be", by Anne Rose, illustrated by Arnold Lobel. My guess is that it was inspired by Diderot's essay? ... hmmm, turns out it was published in the 70s, so not based on the paper describing the effect.

eternityforest 4y ago

Tech has this effect very strongly since almost all modern tech is part of multiple ecosystems. Luckily it's nowhere near as expensive as true luxury goods, and often seems to almost replace their role, so overall consumption and expense isn't as bad as one might expect.

pgt 4y ago

Reminds me of good coffee, high-fidelity audio and Lisp (Paredit, specifically). Once you have heard well-tuned, low distortion audio, it is difficult to enjoy a badly-tuned, distorted system. The curse of knowledge.

NoGravitas 4y ago
Fortunately, you can usually indulge your Lisp habit for free.

shmde 4y ago

Damn didn't realise that I went through this. Had a broken mouse, bought an expensive mouse to replace it. Mouse looked better than my keyboard. Ditched my membrane keyboard with a Mechanical keyboard. Read that different switches make different sound. Bought a new pack of switches. Someone recommended that those switches work best with XDA profile keycaps. Went ahead and bought that. This effect is real.

parrot333 4y ago

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tobr 4y ago

I can’t remember where I heard this quote, but I often think about it: “I don’t like to buy things for my things”. For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. Many of those things will in turn require their own things, and so on. It’s interesting to consider the longest thing chains you have in your life, so you can avoid making them longer or avoid starting new ones.

cainxinth 4y ago
> For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. I have a family friend who coined a saying I repeat often: “I never met a house that wasn’t a thief.”
nzealand 4y ago
> For example, if you buy a car or a house, it’s basically guaranteed that you will soon need car things and house things. Many of those things will in turn require their own things, and so on. ...then eventually, you need a bigger house to keep all those things in.
- Ntrails 4y ago
  > The things you own end up owning you. It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything. etc
  - nicolas_t 4y ago
    Me and my wife have recently tried to sell as much as possible after realising this. Anything we know we won't need right now we sell so that we stop just having so many stuff...
replyifuagree 4y ago
Apple ecosystem is like that. Especially if you have a family, that chain gets long, wide and each thing comes with a premium pricetag.

dandare 4y ago

To save this planet, we need to make frugality sexi again

hgsgm 4y ago

Load-balance your luxury, don't min-max.

5mv2 4y ago

As a European, I really appreciate San Fransisco deca-millionaires intentionally tastelessness. I remember a podcast of Tim Ferris where he was boasting that people often complimented him on his Vans black shoes because "they could pass as dress shoes". No one past the age of 15 would be so tasteless as to share such a compliment, and that's what's beautiful about SF. SF also happens to be the place where I heard a deceptively powerful method to get rid of stuff 1. Put all your stuff in boxes 2. Pick items out when you need them 3. After a year, throw everything you don't use

britzkopf 4y ago
I can't decide if this is a humble brag or very backhanded compliment. Either way, the message is clear... Europeans are naturally endowed with taste and sophistication! :-o
- sangnoir 4y ago
  European deca-millionares*. I took it as commentary on class mobility, or the lack thereof.
- mkipper 4y ago
  That's not my read of it at all. You could make the exact same comment without any mention of Europe -- it's pretty unlikely that a hedge fund manager in NY would hear that comment from someone in their social circle.
- 5mv2 4y ago
  It's a genuine compliment! Sophistication is great, but not when it's mostly aimed at increasing social status, which is a zero sum game. Like how mkipper read it.
marcosdumay 4y ago
> 1. Put all your stuff in boxes 2. Pick items out when you need them 3. After a year, throw everything you don't use That method is normally known as "moving", plenty of people practice it once in a while but it's more popular for people that rent a home.

gspencley 4y ago

Been there. Most recently with filmmaking gear. Started with a new camera, I knew I'd need lenses and accessories and budgeted accordingly. What I didn't expect was the external monitor, mounting cage, lens filters, haze/fog machine and some of the lighting-related gear that I ended up getting. Then I found myself going down the vintage lens rabbit hole ... luckily by that time I saw what was happening and cut myself off lol.

slickdork 4y ago
Smart to cut yourself off. Unless you're a production company, it makes most sense to rent the gear for a planned shoot.
- gspencley 4y ago
  Even a production company would rent gear quite often. But I'm a hobbyist, have no planned shoot and hate the hassle of renting anything, broadly speaking.
tasuki 4y ago
Why would vintage lenses be a problem? I have two, both very cheap, excellent build quality, and bad flare handling. Compared to all the other stuff you mentioned, vintage lenses will likely hold value and can be sold anytime in the future.
- gspencley 4y ago
  Vintage lenses weren't a problem it's just where I chose, arbitrarily, to draw the line. I had already spent quite a bit up to that point. I'm still absolutely interested in vintage lenses, I just need to slow down a bit lol

trilobyte 4y ago

Warhammer 40k players <sweating intensifies>

bananatron 4y ago

Try to only acquire stuff that looks kind of broken and life becomes cheaper.

notShabu 4y ago

Photography and similar hobbies tends to have a "quality bottleneck" A full frame camera needs more expensive bigger lenses which needs a higher quality tripod, larger and faster memory cards, more powerful computer for the editing, etc... Improving one thing requires improving everything since the final output is limited by a "bottleneck" The Diderot Effect seems to point out a similar "identity" bottleneck where a higher quality(status) identity is bottlenecked by the lowest quality frustration.