5 ms·

Maybe we need a new boots theory: The rich person buys a $3500 pair of boots that comes with surveillance, useless AI, and bricks itself on the next firmware u

Maybe we need a new boots theory: The rich person buys a $3500 pair of boots that comes with surveillance, useless AI, and bricks itself on the next firmware update. The poor person buys a pair of boots, that are... boots.

lexszero_ 1y ago
"You are so poor that when AWS goes down, you still can get into your house" -- seen somewhere
- amarant 1y ago
  Which phase of capitalism is this? Suffering costs extra, and you'll gladly pay for it!
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    "As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free.’" - 1984
dylan604 1y ago
Isn't that reversed now? You can only afford the device that is subsidized by the analytics you will be generating for them while the rich person can afford to by the non-subsidized version.
- kragen 1y ago
  No, these are US$3500 fridges.
  - technothrasher 1y ago
    $3500 is about 1/3 of the cost of a "rich person" fridge.
    - analog31 1y ago
      A truly rich person has never seen their fridge.
      - derefr 1y ago
        Certainly, the truly rich person has never seen the main fridge their staff uses to store the ingredients for their meals. But said rich person has at least one more fridge: a relatively-small, usually very elegant (in-wall, glass-door) fridge, located in the [badly designed for cooking, but pretty] "kitchen" that adjoins the butler's pantry [= nearest, usually secondary, real kitchen]. They use this "kitchen" to whimsically prepare avocado toast when hosting "guests" (e.g. people from Architectural Digest); or when vlogging / hosting their reality TV show about all the cooking they love doing. (At any other time, e.g. when hosting actual guests, if they want to make use of this kitchen [rather than simply speaking in their lounge until dinner is served in their separated dining room], it won't be by cooking there themselves, but rather by sitting around the kitchen island or the [probably open] secondary dining arrangement nearby, watching their private chef cook there, while they or their assistants try desperately to cover for how gimped their workflow is by having to use the faux-kitchen.) And of course, even if the rich person does some whimsical/performative hobby cooking, the staff will have prepped and mise-en-placed anything they'll need from the butler's pantry onto the (huge) kitchen island in advance. (Like a cooking show!) So even then, they won't be needing the "kitchen" fridge. With the extreme edge-case exception of needing something to stay cool until the very moment it's needed; or needing to repeatedly chill it (think "making croissant dough", though I doubt a rich person would ever try.)
        kragen 1y ago
        This reads like fiction rather than informed ethnography. I think I've only been in one hectomillionaire's kitchen, though it can be hard to tell, and the only resemblance to your description is that he had a large household staff. But it wasn't his main house, and I don't know if you consider someone who isn't even a billionaire to be "truly rich".
derefr 1y ago
It's hard to make the right boots analogy (try it yourself if you think you can), but to speak of fridges — • The rich person's remodeller (or the developer of the house they buy) buys a commercial-kitchen prep fridge for the house's kitchen. This is a big, powerful, durable, repairable, no-frills, utilitarian fridge, that could be viewed as attractive or ugly depending on your opinion on brutalism. The rich person never sees this fridge. It's kept in the butler's pantry and only their private chef ever touches it. • The rich person's interior designer then buys an elegant/classy half-sized in-wall glass-door fridge to live in the kitchen itself. This is intended for the rich person's household staff to keep constantly stocked with snacks and drinks for the rich person to grab. (Also, if the rich person thinks they want to cook one day, the staff will prep the exact ingredients needed in advance, keeping them in the butler's pantry until called for, but will then stage any "must stay cold" ingredients here.) This fridge is generally a piece of shit, made with huge markups by companies that make fancy-house furniture. But it sure is pretty! If (when) it fails, the staff can temporarily revert to just serving the role of that fridge, running to the butler's-pantry fridge or other cold-storage area (maybe a walk-in!) when the rich person wants something. (Also compare/contrast: in-wall wine cooler.) • The rich person's household staff might respond to the rich person's request for more convenient access to snacks/drinks in certain areas of the house by buying + keeping stocked one or more minifridges. There'll certainly be one in the house's bar. (There's always a bar.) These are sturdy commercial-grade bricks, built by the same companies that build the ones that go into hotels; but these companies serve rich people just as often as they serve hotels, so they tend to have an up-market marque that makes the fridge look fancy while reusing the well-engineered core.
- fn-mote 1y ago
  Parent was funny but almost a non-sequitor. I appreciated the kernel of truth: industrial fridges will not come with adware in the foreseeable future. Buy industrial.
  - derefr 1y ago
    I mean, my point was that there are actually three different ways you can spend a lot of money on a fridge, and it's a lot like with PCs. You can buy: • a big ugly powerful repairable/durable industrial one (like a server); • an average-sized, somewhat-fancy (because high-trim), repairable/durable commercial one (like a workstation); • or an average-sized fancy "aesthetic" one, made by a design company rather than an appliance company, that isn't repairable or durable (like one of those bespoke "sleeper desk PCs.") The same goes for most things you can spend a lot of money on. A sound system, a vacuum cleaner, a car, etc. In each of these cases, "premium" has these same three distinct meanings. None of which involve showing you ads. But all of which have their own trade-offs. And all of which are usually quite a bit more expensive (each for their own reasons) than the highest-trim product sold directly to the average consumer by what you'd think of as a "consumer brand."
bitwize 1y ago
There's a midwit bell curve meme lurking here...
201984 1y ago
Not that dissimilar to Wirecutter's advice on appliances: either buy the cheapest of the cheap because it'll have the fewest parts that can break, or the most expensive since it'll be built with high quality components and hopefully be repairable. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/modern-appliances-short-lifespan/#for-appliances-that-really-last-go-low-or-high https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/modern-appliances...
- taffronaut 1y ago
  The cheapest appliance is definitely cheap, whereas you generally have to take on trust the quality of the most expensive. The rule of thumb I use is "you don't get what you don't pay for", which is not the same as "you get what you pay for".
NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
The rich person goes to an exclusive London cobbler who spends 11 days carving out a model of his feet, one for left and one for right, out of expensive hardwood. Once complete, a team of masters and apprentices carefully craft him bespoke shoes out of premium leather (straight from Italy!). When finished, the shop calls his assistant and has them delivered. It only costs about $40,000. You, the poor person, spend $150 on crappy Nike athletic footware, that isn't sized to fit, will fall apart in 6 months (3 if you're using them for actual athletics), but are unfashionable in 3 weeks (but you'll buy them for your middle school children anyway). And you'll think you're rich doing it. Never mind that the cost was $4.75 (up x2 what it was pre-Covid) in Bangladesh, plus $0.30 shipping across the Pacific. The sweatshop worker got a cut of $0.04 for the pair. The analogy doesn't work though, because people nowdays are paradoxically even stupider than they were in Victorian times.
II2II 1y ago
It's probably more like a rich person will spend $50 on a pair of boots that will last 10 years, while a poor person will spend $10 on a pair of boots that will last a year. The upper middle class person will spend the $40 on a pair of boots that comes with surveillance and useless AI, while a middle class person will spend $30 for the same, except it bricks itself on the next firmware update.
- nchmy 1y ago
  where, outside of thrift stores, are you finding boots at these prices?
  - Retric 1y ago
    That’s actually roughly the price range to manufacture normal shoes. “The average production cost of a single pair of shoes ranges between $10 and $50. This includes materials, labor, and overhead.” https://hevashoeinc.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture-a-shoe/ https://hevashoeinc.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture... What you actually pay is a large multiple of that covering the taxes, shipping, sales channel, marketing, etc.
- everdrive 1y ago
  Boots and shoes are interesting because they're genuinely an area where premium materials and construction _could_ significantly improve how long they last. We're talking 1-2 years for "normal" boots and decades for $500+ boots (with re-soling) There's also a good middle ground here. I'm not saying everyone needs really expensive boots, but it nice that you can actually spend more money for higher quality rather than a horrible system on a chip that fails after a year and renders a whole product useless.
  - chipsrafferty 1y ago
    This is true of most products, actually.
Fwirt 1y ago
My point was more along the lines of the fact that below a certain price point, you can't be sure whether you're paying $3500 for actual build quality and features or marketing. A $500 fridge could last forever, or it could last exactly as long as the (very short) warranty period. Also, cheap stuff may last forever in some ways, but it's been cost optimized in a million different ways that make it more annoying to use. In my case the compressor is fine, but the plastic interior has some inexplicable cracks in it and the feet broke off. But at least it will never advertise to me.

lexszero_ 1y ago

"You are so poor that when AWS goes down, you still can get into your house" -- seen somewhere

amarant 1y ago
Which phase of capitalism is this? Suffering costs extra, and you'll gladly pay for it!
- whatshisface 1y ago
  "As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free.’" - 1984

dylan604 1y ago

Isn't that reversed now? You can only afford the device that is subsidized by the analytics you will be generating for them while the rich person can afford to by the non-subsidized version.

kragen 1y ago
No, these are US$3500 fridges.
- technothrasher 1y ago
  $3500 is about 1/3 of the cost of a "rich person" fridge.
  - analog31 1y ago
    A truly rich person has never seen their fridge.
    - derefr 1y ago
      Certainly, the truly rich person has never seen the main fridge their staff uses to store the ingredients for their meals. But said rich person has at least one more fridge: a relatively-small, usually very elegant (in-wall, glass-door) fridge, located in the [badly designed for cooking, but pretty] "kitchen" that adjoins the butler's pantry [= nearest, usually secondary, real kitchen]. They use this "kitchen" to whimsically prepare avocado toast when hosting "guests" (e.g. people from Architectural Digest); or when vlogging / hosting their reality TV show about all the cooking they love doing. (At any other time, e.g. when hosting actual guests, if they want to make use of this kitchen [rather than simply speaking in their lounge until dinner is served in their separated dining room], it won't be by cooking there themselves, but rather by sitting around the kitchen island or the [probably open] secondary dining arrangement nearby, watching their private chef cook there, while they or their assistants try desperately to cover for how gimped their workflow is by having to use the faux-kitchen.) And of course, even if the rich person does some whimsical/performative hobby cooking, the staff will have prepped and mise-en-placed anything they'll need from the butler's pantry onto the (huge) kitchen island in advance. (Like a cooking show!) So even then, they won't be needing the "kitchen" fridge. With the extreme edge-case exception of needing something to stay cool until the very moment it's needed; or needing to repeatedly chill it (think "making croissant dough", though I doubt a rich person would ever try.)
      - kragen 1y ago
        This reads like fiction rather than informed ethnography. I think I've only been in one hectomillionaire's kitchen, though it can be hard to tell, and the only resemblance to your description is that he had a large household staff. But it wasn't his main house, and I don't know if you consider someone who isn't even a billionaire to be "truly rich".

derefr 1y ago

It's hard to make the right boots analogy (try it yourself if you think you can), but to speak of fridges — • The rich person's remodeller (or the developer of the house they buy) buys a commercial-kitchen prep fridge for the house's kitchen. This is a big, powerful, durable, repairable, no-frills, utilitarian fridge, that could be viewed as attractive or ugly depending on your opinion on brutalism. The rich person never sees this fridge. It's kept in the butler's pantry and only their private chef ever touches it. • The rich person's interior designer then buys an elegant/classy half-sized in-wall glass-door fridge to live in the kitchen itself. This is intended for the rich person's household staff to keep constantly stocked with snacks and drinks for the rich person to grab. (Also, if the rich person thinks they want to cook one day, the staff will prep the exact ingredients needed in advance, keeping them in the butler's pantry until called for, but will then stage any "must stay cold" ingredients here.) This fridge is generally a piece of shit, made with huge markups by companies that make fancy-house furniture. But it sure is pretty! If (when) it fails, the staff can temporarily revert to just serving the role of that fridge, running to the butler's-pantry fridge or other cold-storage area (maybe a walk-in!) when the rich person wants something. (Also compare/contrast: in-wall wine cooler.) • The rich person's household staff might respond to the rich person's request for more convenient access to snacks/drinks in certain areas of the house by buying + keeping stocked one or more minifridges. There'll certainly be one in the house's bar. (There's always a bar.) These are sturdy commercial-grade bricks, built by the same companies that build the ones that go into hotels; but these companies serve rich people just as often as they serve hotels, so they tend to have an up-market marque that makes the fridge look fancy while reusing the well-engineered core.

fn-mote 1y ago
Parent was funny but almost a non-sequitor. I appreciated the kernel of truth: industrial fridges will not come with adware in the foreseeable future. Buy industrial.
- derefr 1y ago
  I mean, my point was that there are actually three different ways you can spend a lot of money on a fridge, and it's a lot like with PCs. You can buy: • a big ugly powerful repairable/durable industrial one (like a server); • an average-sized, somewhat-fancy (because high-trim), repairable/durable commercial one (like a workstation); • or an average-sized fancy "aesthetic" one, made by a design company rather than an appliance company, that isn't repairable or durable (like one of those bespoke "sleeper desk PCs.") The same goes for most things you can spend a lot of money on. A sound system, a vacuum cleaner, a car, etc. In each of these cases, "premium" has these same three distinct meanings. None of which involve showing you ads. But all of which have their own trade-offs. And all of which are usually quite a bit more expensive (each for their own reasons) than the highest-trim product sold directly to the average consumer by what you'd think of as a "consumer brand."

bitwize 1y ago

There's a midwit bell curve meme lurking here...

201984 1y ago

Not that dissimilar to Wirecutter's advice on appliances: either buy the cheapest of the cheap because it'll have the fewest parts that can break, or the most expensive since it'll be built with high quality components and hopefully be repairable. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/modern-appliances-short-lifespan/#for-appliances-that-really-last-go-low-or-high https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/modern-appliances...

taffronaut 1y ago
The cheapest appliance is definitely cheap, whereas you generally have to take on trust the quality of the most expensive. The rule of thumb I use is "you don't get what you don't pay for", which is not the same as "you get what you pay for".

NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago

The rich person goes to an exclusive London cobbler who spends 11 days carving out a model of his feet, one for left and one for right, out of expensive hardwood. Once complete, a team of masters and apprentices carefully craft him bespoke shoes out of premium leather (straight from Italy!). When finished, the shop calls his assistant and has them delivered. It only costs about $40,000. You, the poor person, spend $150 on crappy Nike athletic footware, that isn't sized to fit, will fall apart in 6 months (3 if you're using them for actual athletics), but are unfashionable in 3 weeks (but you'll buy them for your middle school children anyway). And you'll think you're rich doing it. Never mind that the cost was $4.75 (up x2 what it was pre-Covid) in Bangladesh, plus $0.30 shipping across the Pacific. The sweatshop worker got a cut of $0.04 for the pair. The analogy doesn't work though, because people nowdays are paradoxically even stupider than they were in Victorian times.

II2II 1y ago

It's probably more like a rich person will spend $50 on a pair of boots that will last 10 years, while a poor person will spend $10 on a pair of boots that will last a year. The upper middle class person will spend the $40 on a pair of boots that comes with surveillance and useless AI, while a middle class person will spend $30 for the same, except it bricks itself on the next firmware update.

nchmy 1y ago
where, outside of thrift stores, are you finding boots at these prices?
- Retric 1y ago
  That’s actually roughly the price range to manufacture normal shoes. “The average production cost of a single pair of shoes ranges between $10 and $50. This includes materials, labor, and overhead.” https://hevashoeinc.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture-a-shoe/ https://hevashoeinc.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture... What you actually pay is a large multiple of that covering the taxes, shipping, sales channel, marketing, etc.
everdrive 1y ago
Boots and shoes are interesting because they're genuinely an area where premium materials and construction _could_ significantly improve how long they last. We're talking 1-2 years for "normal" boots and decades for $500+ boots (with re-soling) There's also a good middle ground here. I'm not saying everyone needs really expensive boots, but it nice that you can actually spend more money for higher quality rather than a horrible system on a chip that fails after a year and renders a whole product useless.
- chipsrafferty 1y ago
  This is true of most products, actually.

Fwirt 1y ago

My point was more along the lines of the fact that below a certain price point, you can't be sure whether you're paying $3500 for actual build quality and features or marketing. A $500 fridge could last forever, or it could last exactly as long as the (very short) warranty period. Also, cheap stuff may last forever in some ways, but it's been cost optimized in a million different ways that make it more annoying to use. In my case the compressor is fine, but the plastic interior has some inexplicable cracks in it and the feet broke off. But at least it will never advertise to me.