20 ms·
Everything must be paid for twice (2022)
- ColinWright 3y agoThis has been submitted and discussed before[0], but I'd suggest that before you go and check out that conversation, read the article and see if it resonates with you. Maybe you'll have a new insight. I (mostly) value (many of) the points of view provided by (some of) the HN community, and it would be nice to see more of them. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Everything must be paid for twice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013025 - Jan 2022 (241 comments)
- jonsen 3y agoI have bought a considerable number of books that I have only read partly, skimmed, or not at all. It really took off after reading about Umberto Eco's anti library philosophy; the most important books in your personal library are the books you have not read.
- mehdix 3y agoIt was a good reminder. > People don’t walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. I can resonate with this one. Over the years I have learned that things a person NOT do, is more important compared to what they do. Thanks for sharing.
- personjerry 3y ago[flagged]
- MandieD 3y agoCareful with that - a somewhat earlier version of ChatGPT, when asked who George Wickham was, confidently asserted that he was the hero of Pride and Prejudice.
- personjerry 3y agoAh to clarify these are all self-help / methodology books, so if it was explaining lean startup methodology and made stuff up then it mostly wouldn't make sense.
- phnofive 3y ago> if it was explaining lean startup methodology and made stuff up then it mostly wouldn't make sense. The joke practically writes itself, though I suppose ChatGPT could take the last bit of work out of it.
- mehdix 3y agoI find "paying twice for things" a nice analogy. Over the years I have been unconciously paying more attention to the second price, and often ignore the first one (obviously I'm getting older and have less time to waste). "will this thing last long enough?", "will it break when I most need it?", and "is it worth my time?" are some questions I ask myself when purchasing or choosing something new. It has had a net positive outcome for me.
- throwaway22032 3y agoMe too. My friends find it weird when I buy a used car and I've already budgeted for the repairs, they find it a downer. I'm happy because then when it happens I've already mentally spent the money! The same is true of the time investment.
- gleenn 3y agoElectric is the way to gobif you care about longevity
- throwaway22032 3y agoPublic chargers in the UK cost 75p/kWh and up, which means even an efficient EV costs far more to run than my petrol car, unfortunately. In the past it's never really been the ICE parts that fail on my cars anyway. Rusted suspensions and frames, tyres, etc are the main service items.
- hef19898 3y agoOne of the main, negative, reliability drivers in modern cars is electronics anyway, mechanically new cars hardly ever fail outside of normal wear (e.g. brakes, suspession, gaskets) that is simply unavoidable. Now, the thing with EVs is, they have tons of electronics... Regardless, as soon as EVs hit a price range, accounting for size and so, that is within budget we are going to switch.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
- HPsquared 3y agoEvery decision has personal costs and benefits, as well as a range of costs and benefits to other people (specific and abstract).
- j245 3y agoOn the subject of paying twice, it’s always irked me that we have income tax and then sales tax on the taxed income.
- reverius42 3y agoIn the U.S., it is at least possible to avoid such double taxation (but only in some situations -- i.e. you were itemizing anyway instead of taking the standard deduction, and you live in a state with no income tax). https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/tax-credits-deductions/claim-sales-tax-deduction/L2go49HYM_US_en_US https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/...
- mcv 3y agoI'm (Dutch) self-employed, which means I have my own one-man company, and as such, I can get my VAT back for stuff I buy for my business. Of course I also have to charge VAT for my services again, so that's expected to include the VAT for the stuff I bought. But it does create a massive tax loophole: because I'm a software developer, I can deduct the costs of any computer I buy, but nobody is checking whether I actually use it for work or for gaming. I can deduct work lunches, but employees can't. I know someone who deducted his motorbike because he also used it for work. I can deduct phone and internet costs because I also use them for work. I find the way I can avoid some taxes that others can't, rather questionable. Frankly, everybody should have their own company to avoid this inequality. And the stuff I can deduct is small potatoes compared to the stuff I'm sure some other people are deducting. I'm no tax expert, but I'm sure this is a big part of why billionaires pay so little tax. Also, companies on the edge of the health care system have a problem, because health care is VAT free, so health care companies cannot get the VAT back they have to pay to their suppliers, which makes suppliers of services to the healthcare industry effectively more expensive than they should be. I think this whole system is in dire need of an overhaul.
- MrPatan 3y agoYes, and I'll do you one better: everybody should have their own company and there should be no "employee" option. Everything should be contracts. Makes it clearer it's not a family relationship, it's business.
- sergioisidoro 3y agoI think it's thrice: Acquiring price, usage price, and disposal price. I've recently discovered how large the price of getting rid of something can be. Usually these costs are hidden because you just throw something into the trash and it's gone. But not always the case.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tapland 3y agoThat also goes for software (like notetaking apps or using a certain build system). How easy is exporting the data you care about if you want or have to change platform? Not seldom it's so labor intensive you'll never migrate to something better.
- paradox242 3y agoThis is why I cannot use things like Evernote, OneNote, or the MacOS Notes app. I have first-hand experience of the latter two encountering corruption which was unrecoverable due to their proprietary data format. All three have pretty poor export choices (PDF? Really? What am I supposed to do with that?). I am at the point where I will never again use something that is not plain text files as they are and will likely remain the most portable format. This is how I ended up discovering Obsidian and I have not looked back since.
- lisper 3y agoYeah, this. A few years ago we bought a generator. A few months after the warranty expired, it broke. There are no small-engine repair shops in my area, and it's too big to fit in my car anyway. Having someone come to our house to repair it would cost more than buying a new one. But... how do you get rid of a broken generator? It weighs 45 kg and it has four gallons of gasoline in the tank. You can't just chuck it in the trash. (FYI, I decided to take it apart and was actually able to get it running again. It turned out to be an easy fix -- broken fuel valve. But success was far from guaranteed, and it also took several hours of my time, which probably cost me more than a new generator. On the other hand, I also learned a lot so maybe it was a net win. How do you reckon time vs money vs knowledge?)
- helloplanets 3y ago> A new novel, for example, might require twenty dollars for its first price—and ten hours of dedicated reading time for its second. Only once the second price is being paid do you see any return on the first one. Paying only the first price is about the same as throwing money in the garbage. I think this is a bit too much of an absolutist take. One that turns too many people off from reading, and can add an unnecessary air of elitism around it. If you pay $14.99 for a book, you aren't seeing returns only after ten hours of dedicated reading. Even reading one chapter can yield returns that are equivalent to $14.99, if it's a good book. With non-fiction, you can also pick chapters that strike you as the most interesting and start directly from those, getting faster 'returns on investment'. Then going back and reading the whole thing if you're sucked in. It's very common for sites to publish curated segments of books, whether were talking science related things or not. And even getting double the amount of that text by purchasing the book (compared to the short excerpt) can be worth the price of admission.
- tomalpha 3y agoI’d go further for the specific example of the book. For me the price of reading a good book isn’t a price at all. It’s a gain. I’ve paid the first up front price to be able to read the book and gain enjoyment from it. I get that there are different reasons for reading a book, but even then, it also seems overly simplistic and absolutist to me.
- hnick 3y agoFor a lot of people, they are just paying $20 to have the book. It makes them feel nice through the act of purchase or building a collection. Or maybe it provides a safety blanket if you might need it one day, but no need to read it right now. That's a good deal for them.
- silentsanctuary 3y agoI think the article is less making a comment on “how many hours of time you need to put into reading before it’s worth the monetary cost you laid down for it”. I think it’s trying to remind people that before you get the utility you wanted out of a (non-decorative) book, you need to pay not just ($14.99), but ($14.99 + 10 hours), or indeed ($14.99 + 1 hour). I understood the article to encourage more thoughtful budgeting of that second kind of cost, and that we are tuned to automatically mostly consider the first kind of cost.
- freediver 3y agoThere is also the fourth price - regret price. When buying something you don't need, you pay the cost with emotional regret.
- gameshot911 3y agoI'd also add the regret of not buying something you later realize was a unique opportunity, and wish you would've jumped on in the moment! I've learned that there are so few things that I genuinely feel an itch to buy, that should I come across one (say in a shop window, or a stall in a craft market) I should buy it. So many times I've seen something interesting, thought "okay I'll take a picture and research it and decide later", and I don't think I've ever actually returned a single time -- although I have regretted not purchasing it. Sometimes in life you have to capitalize on the moment - it may not come again!
- constantcrying 3y ago>Only once the second price is being paid do you see any return on the first one. Only if you didn't buy it for the psychological effect. There the point is not paying the secondary price. This is also something which is usually unheard of in a consumerist society, where most things are bought because of utilitarian consideration and not "because ownership makes you feel better".
- psychoslave 3y agoWell, if we feel better because we own it for the simple "fact" that we own it, that is the utility we have from it. That said, we rarely get such a thing in anything we can acquire with only money as a price. For example it’s well known and documented that taking time into meditation sessions will give us many benefits, but no amount of book or titles like "special contributor of the temple" that we can acquire by throwing money at it will give us these same benefits. Money can buy us the prestige and some kind of social obedience, but it won’t auto-magically cultivate our mental flow into sane dynamics. Also let’s remember that there is no ownership outside of a society that recognizes us some form of prioritised policy implementation over some limited matter. So we can’t own anything without paying some price to remain included in this society. That’s the 0th price of any ownership, could we say.
- a_c 3y agoNice analogy. I see "prices" as money and time. To save time, pay more money, to save money, pay in time. Ikea is maybe low on money, but definitely high in terms of time. Any software with good UX should be high on money, because they are low cost in time. There is also a feel good factor, which the time component is 0. e.g. I have a bad habit of buying books not to be read, but to put on bookshelf because it looks good. Sorry Knuth, I am at maybe page 10 of the your 4 volumes of TAOCP. It looks good on my shelf.
- mantas 3y agoAfter dealing with custom builders... Ikea is not high in terms of time either. You're likely to drive to Ikea in the morning and have a shelf/cabinet/couch/whatever ready same evening. Now dealing with custom builders is a wee more involved... Less sweating, but time-wise, it's not that different. And then there's delivery terms if you're on a rush to have something usable in your empty housing.
- trippsydrippsy 3y ago[dead]
- Archelaos 3y agoSome time ago, an article made me rethink my view on the speed differences between cars and bicycles. Here, too, you have to pay twice with your own lifetime, because ultimately the time it takes to get from A to B is not simply the driving time, but you have to add to it the (proportionate) working time to earn the money you need to acquire, operate and maintain the vehicle: speed = (working time + driving time) / distance. Of course, the outcome of this calculation varies depending on the specific situation. I recommend everyone to estimate this once for their personal situation. In any case, I was amazed at what came out for me.
- muspimerol 3y agoDon't forget the potential time (and quality of time) you add to your life by getting regular exercise!
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoI do cycle regularly, but my feeling is, in most places, health benefits don't offset danger coming from other motorists and road users.
- eric-hu 3y agoIt really depends on where you live. I lived in Taipei and cycled around everywhere in that city. There were sometimes bike lanes on the street, and sometimes wide sidewalks with bike lanes, and sometimes neither. Drivers were pretty reasonable most of the time. I felt I could manage the risks by cycling conservatively and assuming drivers didn't see me. I'm in Los Angeles now. While I miss biking dearly, I look at drivers around here and just think it's a matter of when, not if, I'd get into a cycling accident if I tried to ride within a few miles of my home.
- nayuki 3y agoBtw by definition, speed = distance / time. I first learned about half a year ago the concept of adding work time to driving time in "Ivan's Car": https://www.deautovanivan.nl/eng.html https://www.deautovanivan.nl/eng.html > How fast is your car? > The effective speed is calculated on the basis of the price of the car (costs per kilometer) and income (net income). The amount of hours you have to work to drive your car (taxes, insurance, fuel, etcetera) is added to the average speed of a car driver in the Netherlands.
- jlengrand 3y agoMostly agree, though one thing I strongly disagree with (especially for books :)). Paying 1$ at a yard sale for Moby Dick would be it for me. No need to read, I will simply enjoy having the book around me, just like having a new friend at home
- illegalmemory 3y agoYou will have to spend time with someone , understand each other well to be called a friend. Till then, just stranger.
- blippitybleep 3y agoI find myself acquiring lots of books lately, books I won’t read for at least 6 months. It feels like you can’t investigate topics online anymore without some machine somewhere watching you. If I look something up about my house plants in a reference book, sure it might take longer, but there’s something quite liberating about knowing I’m not being watched by some Ferengi-esque bot that wants my money. Same applies to fiction, maybe I want to be able to read or reference Moby Dick in peace.
- jtode 3y agoI love this piece. I had a moment of lifted delusion about a decade ago, I didn't put these particular words on it, but I vividly recall looking around at all the second-price debts I had racked up, books, instruments, pedals, even just software I downloaded intending to learn to use it, and I guess I got so pissed off or something that I skipped right past my usual anger at myself and the accompanying session of self-loathing and I went straight to hating the debts and attacking them. In some cases I passed on the acquired thing, in others I started to just use them, one by one. I still have shelves and shelves of second-price debt unfortunately, but I'm better off these days.
- JackFr 3y agoSeems like a weird way to look at books. I pay for the novel, and then I get to read it. The benefit is in the reading not simply the completing. Do I pay for Netflix, and then I pay again by spending time watching movies?
- HPsquared 3y agoThe decision is more clear if you already own the book (or have access to it). You spend time and get the reward of reading it.
- adam-a 3y agoYeah it seems like such a strange mindset to me too. I feel like some people find it hard to think of things outside of a monetary system. We live in such a financialised world. You can't just read a book and enjoy it, you have to add it to your balance sheet, ammortise the costs, fill out a psychological tax return at the end of the year.
- Simulacra 3y agoSome years back, the RIAA floated a proposal that would make you pay every time you listened to a song. You would never actually own music, you would just pay for it every time you listen to it like you were a radio station. It's just greed.
- stkdump 3y agoI actually like the idea. Many things pay-per-use are actually cheaper unless you use it basically constantly, because if it isn't cheap enough, many people would stop using it, thinking: is listening to it right now really worth X amount? People have a strange attachment to the concept of ownership, so that they are willing to pay extra for it. Pay-per-use is actually a more profitable concept only when people are hesitant to buy something fully, because they are not sure if they would use it enough.
- qup 3y agoWould they send me a bill after a night out at the pub?
- mejutoco 3y agoSimilarly to carbon costs and derivatives, we can go as far back as we want (carbon cost since big bang, since factory, or from the store) or examine the consequences into the future or alternative timelines (opportunity cost). It is an interesting idea, and a good thought experiment. If we are going to quantify everything, we could also quantify the enjoyment of the item as a negative cost, saving us from stress or health or other expenses through its enjoyment. We do it with opportunity cost, so why not in the other direction. In this case, from the top of my head. Buying a book and not reading it yet: - Can provide value by showing that book on my shelf (despicable, but true for some) - Can make me feel good by knowing I am contributing to the author income, or by knowing when I am bored I can reach for the book without intermediate steps. This benefit is immediate. - Can be one step in a chain of steps bringing one closer to a set goal: preparing to find a new job by learning something explained in the book. - Can help build long lasting beneficial habits like focus or language mastery. - If buying the book in a shop, it can bring opportunities for social interaction, that are difficult to quantify. So the value of buying a book is not necessarily the one explained by this model. We can choose other models where the book provides "some" value immediately. IMO what we quantify is not objective, but a reflection of a perspective in itself.
- dsego 3y ago> But then, in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first price. I think this is the thing people miss when saying open source software is given free and people shouldn't complain. Yes, but it requires effort to adopt and it's a liability. So when a free piece of code is published, even marketed and touted, it can create some expectation of commitment, even though the author is not obligated to provide it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rmbyrro 3y agoIs AI solving this already?
- alexalx666 3y agoStill using my 30 inch Apple Cinema HD everyday, the design is timeless, despite of its size, it blends with the interior like no other monitor
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoInteresting take. You can push it further and suggest that if you don't pay the second price you don't own it at all. It's lying around as an object or unused subscription, but you're getting no benefit from it. It's not a binary because sometimes you want things for the future, or just in case, or just because you like having them - and maybe showing them off. But sometimes none of those are true. So what did you buy? And why?
- H8crilA 3y agoThat's why organized tourism is so attractive. You pay the first price, and the second price is actually negative (it relaxes you). Drugs also only have the first price, once you use them it is just fun. (yes there are some positive third prices down the line).
- adammarples 3y agoDrugs are a classic example where you pay the price the next day
- dzogchen 3y agoWhat if I just buy a novel for the feeling it gives me to buy it, and how pretty it looks on my shelf?
- gumby 3y agoWhen I was a kid we repaired everything: darned our clothes, fixed the car, radio, etc. My parents taught us these then essential life skills. In addition, since cash was tight, we used things until they wore out, or if we got something new and additional (like new clothes) we basically didn't use them until the old ones wore out (difficult when you're a growing kid). 50 years later I can't unlearn this even though it makes little sense in most cases in an age when things have no repair affordances or are so cheap (socks) that the "cost" of repair is greater than the effort to replace it. The consequence is that I really dread buying things and have no ability to make an impulse purchase. Every purchase feels like a burden: did I really get the best one that will last the longest? How will I look after it? I can't understand people who go shopping for fun. A gift also feels like a burden has been handed to me (I have to look after this and use it appropriately). It also shocks me that so many people don't know how to repair anything -- though the rational part of my mind wonders if they might be making the right call.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gowld 3y ago> A gift also feels like a burden has been handed to me Donate it immediately, unopened. It can be resold. With any luck, it will be obtained by someone who wants it, or be passed around as a currency totem forever, and never become waste.
- yboris 3y ago"A gift is a burden" - I feel the same way about it. I'm almost 40 years old and have barely bought any items of clothing in a decade -- my parents keep gifting me things (some I've finally started giving to Goodwill), but much of my clothes I care for well so it takes many years before they are bad enough to throw out. It's an unpleasant feeling - I feel pain buying more when I have so much, so I haven't been able to buy things I like (or clothing that I feel expresses my style) in years.
- fredley 3y agoThis articulates a feeling that I've had for a long time. I struggle to buy gifts, which probably does me no favours socially, for this reason. I can't help but feel the burden I'm giving to someone else. Christmas is hell.
- lee 3y agoI'm in a situation where my partner loves to acquire things whereas I have a minimalist mindset. I have felt like every item I own is a burden, and when I live in a house where the vast majority is "owned" by the both of us, it can be overwhelming. I've learned to cope though by simply internally "letting go" of ownership. They're just inanimate objects and they're not "mine". I simply possess them as a mental/legal construct.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoI have so many tools that I feel this way about. I enjoy lending them to people because it makes owning them feel like less of a waste, but I don't have enough of a social network to lend them often enough to "break even" on the second cost.
- yboris 3y agoI'm similar; I found a way to "compartmentalize" - I don't concern myself with what's in my wife's closet or in her boxes. I also have some spaces that are purely mine - so I can have the flavor of minimalism that brings me joy.
- ryandrake 3y agoTake your partner to an estate sale, where the next-of-kin are trying to sell their departed parents' stuff. And just wander around contemplating. We're not taking any of our "stuff" with us when we go. An entire lifetime collecting all these knickknacks and tchotchkes and stuffing your house and storage units with them and at the end... It just becomes a burden to someone else. I think this activity can be good therapy to help people to stop and think about their "stuff accumulation".
- LeafItAlone 3y agoI don’t buy and keep things to take with me when I die. I get them to be useful to me and others. In fact, I’ve gone to many estate sales and picked up useful things at significant discount off new, sometimes even free. It would delight me if someone else benefited from my stuff after I am gone. The biggest thing I struggle with is keeping it organized in a useful way.
- retrocryptid 3y agoThe author does not appear to understand options. Purchasing a copy of Moby Dick at a garage sale for $1 means you have purchased the option of reading it for as long as you want to keep it on your bookshelf. There is a slight possibility you could sell it for $1 in the future, or $0.50 or $2. But that would probably take more effort than you want to put into the enterprise. But mostly what that $1 buys you is an option on use value. You are free to use the book after paying for it. But you are not obligated to use it. The author's point was, I believe, that there's a difference between exchange cost and use cost, which is certainly true. But if you're going to use this parable as an analogy for some business process, you may be better served by thinking about a larger scope: a scope that admits the possibility of value in options. When I was a kid we used to say: "You always pay for what you get. And if you're lucky, you only pay in cash."
- boredumb 3y agoOptions are closer to paying 1$ at a garage sale for the owner to sell it to you on a future date at 1$ and you have the right but not the obligation to do so (say the price is 20 cents next year - you don't have to buy the book at 1$ anymore and you hope that your option you purchased is less than 79.9 cents in order to profit.
- retrocryptid 3y agoNot option on exchange, but option on use.
- munificent 3y agoThe value of having the option to read Moby Dick is essentially zero: you can look it up online whenever you want. When someone chooses to spend a buck buying Moby Dick at a garage sale, the value they get is based on calculating that they will also read it. If they spend the cash but not the time, they've basically just thrown a dollar away.
- retrocryptid 3y ago[flagged]
- psychphysic 3y ago> In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices, creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices. Wow, at first I was about to stop reading and thought this article was drivel. Then that line came up and it was like the breaking bad news scene in breaking bad. Tunnel vision and static as my mind was blown.
- munificent 3y agoI think this article is a brilliant insight into so much unsconscious consumption patterns I see in my own and everyone else's lives these days. Because of plummeting manufacturing costs, we're essentially cash rich and time poor. But our habits around purchasing haven't caught up with that fact and it's very easy to find yourself only calculating the money cost of something when determining if you can afford it, without incorporating the time cost too. I make music and this problem is endemic there where you see people with walls of guitars they can barely play and racks of synthesizers whose functions they don't know. It's really hard to fight against this because marketing is constantly trying to downplay the time commitment for stuff to get you to buy it.
- chrisBob 3y agoStorage costs can also be significant. I have a friend who pays $200/month for his storage unit to keep all of the extra seasonal junk and decorations, and then must swap it out twice per year. Many people pay a less transparent version of the same fee by getting a larger house or apartment for the same reason.
- Hippocrates 3y agoThis hit home for me :-( I'm gonna go sell or donate some of my 2nd price debt items now. They're now a good reminder that time is finite and you need to curate your hobbies and attention carefully.
- themagician 3y agoYou become keenly aware of this if you run a small business and run the IT. Once something is provisioned and in production you maintain it as long as physically possible. Buying a new one is not expensive. The time to get it set up can be 10x the cost of the item in terms of hours.
- nuclearwast 3y agoOne random comment: The book on the photo, Trois fois par jour #2 (Three times a day #2) Is a great cookbook for mere mortal with cooking skill juste above beginner. A few recipes became once a week classic and helped me improve my cooking skill and taste. Highly recommanded! #1 is good too.
- ukuina 3y agoI would argue there are four prices: acquisition, usage, storage, and disposal. The middle two are (ideally?) recurrent costs and storage costs in the age of consumerism grow linearly throughout life. At some point, people "see the light" and start aggressively downsizing. This usually happens when storage cost vastly exceeds usage cost.
- frogpelt 3y agoI tell myself this every time I buy food. If I paid $20 for a plate of food at a restaurant, eating it is the second half of the price. If I eat too much (don't take a box) I pay the second price. If I only eat just enough, the second price is much lower. I also take issue with the statement early in the article that only paying the first price is the same as putting money in the garbage. It's not wrong but that mindset will lead you to becoming a victim of the sunk cost fallacy. If you've already paid for the thing but you no longer want it, get rid of it.