tl;dr Why do people waste money on fancy stuff that doesn't deliver any functional advantage? To advertise their wealth and power to others for mutual future advantage.
A friend gave me a fake Rolex once. He said it was exceptionally good; he had the exact same model that was real and the only difference he could see was that there was an o-ring on the winder of the real Rolex, and none on the fake.
I wore it to a trade show one time, and I was honestly shocked by the positive reception I got as a human -- from every other guy who was wearing a watch!. Usually these were the guys of more importance; buyers and sellers at the executive level, or the CEOs themselves. I hadn't worn a watch since the day my phone could tell time (am old, phones in the 90s did not tell time), so I also hadn't thought about watches in years as a consequence.
I can tell you that the cost of a Rolex is well worth it, from the particular point of view of 'access' to the guys with watches and hey let's talk about them . The watch club. The $40 fake I had was good enough, because who is going to unwind someone else's winder at a social gathering? Similarly other Veblen goods like a Lamborghini (rent one!) that a guy talked about as a conversation piece on a Reddit AMA a day or two ago. Whatever someone is deeply interested in, they will glom onto you if you show anything like authentic interest. If you want my attention, wear a MotoGP shirt or something from VR46.
The fate of the watch? the strap broke and the watch sat in a drawer for a while. My friend offered to fix it, so I gave it back to him about 5 years ago and haven't seen it since! LOL . I haven't needed it either, so I don't care. My phone tells time :) He has promised to return it, but I think he uses it as a spare. His real one stays in the safe, 100% of the time.
It sounds like the cost of a fake Rolex is worth it, while a real Rolex is laughably overpriced.
but do keep in mind that a new low-end honda starts at roughly $20k, and a vintage rolex can be had for ~$5k.
The Honda S2000 had the most impressive 4cyl engine ever produced (and easily one of the best--impressive, reliable, fun--consumer engines ever produced) ... available in a reasonably priced roadster. There is a popular engineer/gear head Youtuber, Engineering Explained, that gawks over his.
But Honda and Rolex are different animals.
Personally I would rather not network with someone who values my character on the basis of wearing a Rolex, especially not in software dev. We're supposed to be savvy intellects, not ostentatious egos.
At least the Honda product has some compelling, original engineering know-how; the Rolex does not, and that's all I ever said. What you're saying is unsubstantiated troll-bait and insulting to me, and a lot of people. Good on ya' for that one.
Edit: you edited your own comment... To still another unsubstantiated yet pretentious and condescending comment.
You mentioned being software development, and as a skilled craftsperson in that field naturally you prize function over display. But two professional investors might eye each others' Rolexes to to signal both a sufficiently high level of disposable income that they can afford not to care about purely utilitarian factors, and as a sign of willingness to comply with an unwritten social norm rather than insisting on the superiority of their own taste/judgment in every circumstance.
What's ostentatious to the outsider may be an expression of humility to the insider: 'I'm willing to pay the price for this entry ticket on my wrist, but did not come here this evening to try to one-up everyone else.' At the opposite end of the social scale, you might wear a black leather jacket to fit in at the local punk club, but if your leather jacket was of too obviously high quality the other punks would doubtless consider you a wanker.
Please consider the possibility that you are undervaluing the social engineering function of the expensive watch by focusing on the technical engineering criteria.
Also, the above poster's assertion this is proce discrimination is plainly wrong and uninformed. This has nothing to do with price discrimination.
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/inside-rolex
Certainly nowhere on the scale or awe of what the large automakers like Toyota or Honda have done, but impressive nonetheless (to a layman like me, at least)
Ignoring the networking benefits, I've always found Rolex's message of "we charge more because we're _lower_ quality" pretty uncompelling. They are the Vertu of the 20th century.
A Rolex at least holds it's value well compared to other jewelry. If you buy a vintage Rolex and take care of it, you can pretty much sell it at any time and get your money back or maybe even make a small profit.
Fake Rolexes, apparently.
A skilled stonemason these days might find him or herself doing quite a lot of work for the wealthy, creating buildings that have traditional-style features but are not good or authentic architecture. That doesn't demean the craftsmanship involved (thankfully), and keeps the skills alive, but the end product is more or less waste.
I was being facetious though, playing off the GP comment's mention of museums. I'm a painter and an unsociable one at that.
I had a roommate years ago who made a living selling knockoffs of expensive handbags, but who would occasionally get busted and have his merchandise confiscated. (I personally think it should be legal to sell fakes but that's another story.) Anyway he switched to buy non-branded handbags, of really excellent quality, arguably as good or better than the fashionable ones. His business went well, as far as I know, but he had to sell more units to overcome the branding 'deficiency'.
Compare this Louis Vuitton leather briefcase: http://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/porte-documents-v...
To this Saddleback: http://www.saddlebackleather.com/thin-leather-briefcase
8x the price but the Saddleback likely has quality on par with, if not exceeding, the Louis. Sure, the Louis is probably very well made, but that has nothing to do with the price.
- Hey man, look what a nice new tie I've got! $1500!
- Dude, you're lame. They sell the same for $5k in the shop down the street.