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Not sure if there are other folks like me on HN .. but I'm really hurting due to Lego. I started back into this "hobby" 3 months back, and have spent 3K so far.

Not sure if there are other folks like me on HN .. but I'm really hurting due to Lego. I started back into this "hobby" 3 months back, and have spent 3K so far. This is unsustainable for me, and I'm a pretty decent income tech worker. I'm literally watching videos how to help me with my "problem". I am all for entrepreneurship, success and creativity, but like in-app purchases, I think some folks have addictive personalities and these folks can fall prey to psychological manipulation of the sort enacted by games (with IAP) and also Lego. I know no one is forcing me to buy these expensive sets but the tricks being employed by Lego (e.g. short retirement of sets, GWPs, vloggers reviewing oodles of sets) feel wrong on my morality compass. Companies should not be optimizing for just profit .. they should, at least a tiny bit, factor the impact they are having on their customer's lives.

jerojero 3y ago
Yeah, it was similar for me. You need to unsuscribe from every newsletter and also any "reviewers" on youtube if you follow them. Seriously, this is not an issue just with legos but also tech in general and pretty much any hobby. Youtube reviews hurt A LOT. It's extremely rare for a youtube reviewer to not recommend the product, and even more so when they always have affiliate links for you to buy said product. They will get the sets before they are released and they're literally just doing marketing. For them, even buying the sets can be tax-deductible so even if they're really passionate and whatnot... it costs them much less than it costs you. Also, even if they said "hey this is probably not really worth the money" they will point you to another product that is and that's pretty much a mortal trap for people who have spending problems. In today's age, the right products are all there and it's very easy to be convinced when you're already kind of in a vulnerable state. Another thing you can do is to set yourself a realistic spending budget for it. And I do mean realistic. If you're spending 3000 dollars a year on it then it's not going to be realistic to go to 500... but it might be realistic to go to 1500-2000 and so on. Maybe you can tell yourself, hey, I'll buy one big set, two medium sets, and five small sets. It might be easier to stick to that. Anyway. I moved countries so I can't buy lego anymore without it being a huge expense; but it did kind of become a problem for a few years for me.

jerojero 3y ago

Yeah, it was similar for me. You need to unsuscribe from every newsletter and also any "reviewers" on youtube if you follow them. Seriously, this is not an issue just with legos but also tech in general and pretty much any hobby. Youtube reviews hurt A LOT. It's extremely rare for a youtube reviewer to not recommend the product, and even more so when they always have affiliate links for you to buy said product. They will get the sets before they are released and they're literally just doing marketing. For them, even buying the sets can be tax-deductible so even if they're really passionate and whatnot... it costs them much less than it costs you. Also, even if they said "hey this is probably not really worth the money" they will point you to another product that is and that's pretty much a mortal trap for people who have spending problems. In today's age, the right products are all there and it's very easy to be convinced when you're already kind of in a vulnerable state. Another thing you can do is to set yourself a realistic spending budget for it. And I do mean realistic. If you're spending 3000 dollars a year on it then it's not going to be realistic to go to 500... but it might be realistic to go to 1500-2000 and so on. Maybe you can tell yourself, hey, I'll buy one big set, two medium sets, and five small sets. It might be easier to stick to that. Anyway. I moved countries so I can't buy lego anymore without it being a huge expense; but it did kind of become a problem for a few years for me.