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Investing? To me it implies stocks. You are not investing in anything, you are consuming goods and services. When people buy loads of crap and call it "investi

Investing? To me it implies stocks. You are not investing in anything, you are consuming goods and services. When people buy loads of crap and call it "investing in a [good] ..." is that some sort of coping mechanism? No, you don't own boot futures. You bought some boots and you wear them.

gondaloof 3y ago
It’s my money, it’s always an investment hoping to get some return, either happiness or convenience. It’s not meant to be taken literally.
- michaelt 3y ago
  Would you invest in a sandwich? Or a foreign holiday?
WantonQuantum 3y ago
The verb "to invest" predates the usage you say it implies for you. This might be a sign that there are other usages.
reedf1 3y ago
Investing is just anything you buy with an expected return. So you can buy boots with the expectation of selling them - and that is an investment. But I completely agree with your fundamental point - it would be better described as a sunk-cost.
tjoff 3y ago
You invest in an ecosystem. That means that you are aware of the vendor lock-in and realize that moving to something else is going to be expensive and troublesome. Perhaps having to get rid of devices you've collected over a decade or having to engineering a hybrid solution with weird shortcomings. But by investing in it you expect returns as in a coherent system that work well together and that you can easily add more functionality over time and that also increases the utility of your existing devices. The problems associated with it are why many, like me, refuse to be so dependent on any vendor. And step one is to not buy anything that depends on the cloud to function.
bell-cot 3y ago
From vague memory, "investing" has been a Sales Dept. buzzword since at least the 1970's. Typically used to ease a prospective customer into spending too much (if not way too much) money on something. With fairly explicit implications about $Product being awesome, admired by people you know, and lasting an exceptionally long time. And implicit implications of getting the customer emotionally invested in $Product - to the point where he is no longer making rational decisions, and spending way too much money.
blitzar 3y ago
The Latin verb investire meant “to clothe” or “to surround” (the prefix in- + vestīre meant “to dress,” “to clothe”; the etymology of invest literally means “in clothes”).
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  Hence investiture of bishops or to invest someone with power.
csydas 3y ago
I don't think such a semantic argument is necessary; invest just means you're committing resources to get benefits, it's not purely a financial arrangement. I'm positive in your work you think in terms of resource investments and payoffs to better understand whether a project is worth continuing with, and that's exactly what the article means. A smart home system is definitely an investment in my mind, and the payoff is a more comfortable and easier life. That is all the article is saying; the financial, time, and mental resources are no longer going to be invested into Google smart home products as the investment does not return the desired benefits and even leaves you with a net-negative.
egypturnash 3y ago
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. - Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms Sounds like a sensible investment to me. You spent a lot on some hella nice boots and if you don't care about keeping up with style, you can amortize their cost over a lot more use than someone who can only afford cheap, shitty boots.

gondaloof 3y ago

It’s my money, it’s always an investment hoping to get some return, either happiness or convenience. It’s not meant to be taken literally.

michaelt 3y ago
Would you invest in a sandwich? Or a foreign holiday?

WantonQuantum 3y ago

The verb "to invest" predates the usage you say it implies for you. This might be a sign that there are other usages.

reedf1 3y ago

Investing is just anything you buy with an expected return. So you can buy boots with the expectation of selling them - and that is an investment. But I completely agree with your fundamental point - it would be better described as a sunk-cost.

tjoff 3y ago

You invest in an ecosystem. That means that you are aware of the vendor lock-in and realize that moving to something else is going to be expensive and troublesome. Perhaps having to get rid of devices you've collected over a decade or having to engineering a hybrid solution with weird shortcomings. But by investing in it you expect returns as in a coherent system that work well together and that you can easily add more functionality over time and that also increases the utility of your existing devices. The problems associated with it are why many, like me, refuse to be so dependent on any vendor. And step one is to not buy anything that depends on the cloud to function.

bell-cot 3y ago

From vague memory, "investing" has been a Sales Dept. buzzword since at least the 1970's. Typically used to ease a prospective customer into spending too much (if not way too much) money on something. With fairly explicit implications about $Product being awesome, admired by people you know, and lasting an exceptionally long time. And implicit implications of getting the customer emotionally invested in $Product - to the point where he is no longer making rational decisions, and spending way too much money.

blitzar 3y ago

The Latin verb investire meant “to clothe” or “to surround” (the prefix in- + vestīre meant “to dress,” “to clothe”; the etymology of invest literally means “in clothes”).

selimthegrim 3y ago
Hence investiture of bishops or to invest someone with power.

csydas 3y ago

I don't think such a semantic argument is necessary; invest just means you're committing resources to get benefits, it's not purely a financial arrangement. I'm positive in your work you think in terms of resource investments and payoffs to better understand whether a project is worth continuing with, and that's exactly what the article means. A smart home system is definitely an investment in my mind, and the payoff is a more comfortable and easier life. That is all the article is saying; the financial, time, and mental resources are no longer going to be invested into Google smart home products as the investment does not return the desired benefits and even leaves you with a net-negative.

egypturnash 3y ago

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. - Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms Sounds like a sensible investment to me. You spent a lot on some hella nice boots and if you don't care about keeping up with style, you can amortize their cost over a lot more use than someone who can only afford cheap, shitty boots.