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> people genuinely prefer new, crappier stuff to classier, old items > Virtually every time a consumer is confronted with a lousier but easily available option
by ajkjk 2y ago
> people genuinely prefer new, crappier stuff to classier, old items
> Virtually every time a consumer is confronted with a lousier but easily available option and a vastly superior one but requiring some mental, or occasionally physical, effort, they choose the former.
No they don't. There's a bunch of information asymmetries and missing choices that make the equilibrium warped and bizarre, rather than revealing anything so simple about society. Sure it's at some local optimum but there can be still be wildly better global optima that the system has trouble reaching.
- blfr 2y ago> There's a bunch of information asymmetries This is what I meant by mental effort. With the advent of the Internet, most of these asymmetries are gated by at most a couple of hours of online research.
- ajkjk 2y agoNo there are a lot of asymmetries still. Knowing something is bad easy. Actually having access to something good, and knowing how to shop for it and acquire it and get it an affordable price, is hard. As is knowing, for the producers, that people want certain things and will pay for them, or would pay for them if marketed to correctly.