macwright-com-jye5zz.txt (3161B)
1 [1]Tom MacWright 2 3 [email protected] 4 5 [2]Tom MacWright 6 7 • [3]Writing 8 • [4]Reading 9 • [5]Photos 10 • [6]Projects 11 • [7]Drawings 12 • [8]Micro⇠ 13 • [9]About 14 15 Maximization and buying stuff 16 17 2024-12-29 18 19 I’ve been revisiting the vintage 37signals blog post [10]A Rant Against 20 Maximization. I am by nature, a bit of a maximizer: I put a lot of time into 21 research about everything and have grown to be unfortunately picky. On the 22 positive side, I don’t regret purchases very frequently and can be a good 23 source of recommendations. 24 25 But this year I decided to starting figuring out how to spend money more 26 effectively – to figure out what it’s useful for that gives me joy and 27 long-term satisfaction. Partly inspired by [11]Die With Zero and [12]Ramit 28 Sethi’s philosophies. 29 30 It has been a tough transition. I’m used to finding some price/quality local 31 maximum, and nice stuff is always past that point. Leicas, luxury cars, fancy 32 clothes, etc are usually 80% more expensive and 20% technically-better than the 33 value-optimizing alternative. 34 35 To be clear, I bought a fancy bicycle, no BMWs for this guy. But it followed 36 the same diminishing-marginal-utility arc as other fancy stuff. I’ve spent a 37 lot of time thinking about whether I would have been better off choosing a 38 different point on the cost/value curve. 39 40 But really: for most things there are a wide range of acceptable deals. We were 41 not born to optimize cost/value ratios, and it’s not obvious that getting that 42 optimization right will really bring joy, or getting it wrong (in minor ways) 43 should make anyone that sad. And it’s a tragedy to [13]keep caring about 44 inconsequential costs just because of psychology. I’m trying to avoid that 45 tragedy. 46 47 Anyway, the bike is awesome. 48 49 Also, with the exception of sports cars and houses, people in the tech industry 50 and my demographic in the US likes to keep its consumerism understated. For 51 example, an average tech worker in San Francisco tends to look clean-cut middle 52 class, but going up the stairs from the subway you’ll see a lot of [14]$500 53 sneakers. There are acceptable categories of consumerism – you can buy a 54 tremendously oversized house and get very little flack for it (maybe the home 55 is a good investment, though I have my doubts), and a big car (bigger the 56 better, to protect your family in crashes with other big cars, apologies to the 57 pedestrians). Uncoincidentally, I guess, these are also the two purchases that 58 in the US are usually financed, or in other words, leveraged. 59 60 61 References: 62 63 [1] https://macwright.com/ 64 [2] https://macwright.com/ 65 [3] https://macwright.com/writing/ 66 [4] https://macwright.com/reading/ 67 [5] https://macwright.com/photos/ 68 [6] https://macwright.com/projects/ 69 [7] https://macwright.com/drawings/ 70 [8] https://macwright.com/micro/ 71 [9] https://macwright.com/about/ 72 [10] https://signalvnoise.com/svn3/a-rant-against-maximization/ 73 [11] https://macwright.com/2021/09/11/die-with-zero 74 [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramit_Sethi 75 [13] https://wggtb.substack.com/p/having-a-healthy-relationship-with 76 [14] https://www.nordstrom.com/s/common-projects-original-achilles-sneaker-men/4976450