Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tombert | Hacker News Reader

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I was the first person in my family to do the "cord cutting" thing, where I only had an Amazon Prime and Netflix account, and a bunch of DVDs and Blu-Rays (around 2012). People asked me why, and I said that I think it's dumb to pay money for advertisements, and that I think ads are bad for you.

My brother-in-law is overall a smart guy, but he works at Taco Bell full-time, making minimum wage in NYC (~$15/hour). He decided that he needed the newest iPhone 11, presumably because of some good marketing, spent over a grand (through financing of course...ugh), and he'll spend the next year paying it off.

I have nothing against the iPhone, I have one, but let's be honest here, do most people even benefit from the "newest" phones? He mostly watches YouTube and listens to music, and occasionally plays PUBG, all of which you could do on previous versions. He's also not some passionate photographer, so the fancier camera isn't going to make a huge difference.

These stories are too common.

I would guess that the median* wage on HN is probably around 5x what your brother-in-law makes. And I would also guess that many of us are perfectly content with old phones, old cars, and generally reduced consumption. Hell, I buy clothes at thrift/resale shops when I find something nice that fits.

What are people of means (relatively) seeing? Is it because we have more leisure time and can afford to filter the media we consume?

*I'm consciously using median because I would guess that FAANG and the coasts skew the mean.

If you're basically rich and you choose to do things associated with being poor it's not really that negative because you aren't poor.

Like I mend clothes and something I do the visible mending stitch patterns. I'm sure people judge us and think we're poor, but I don't really care because I'm not. Alternatively, doing high effort things like mending clothes can seem kind of cute and novel if you aren't poor.

>Is it because we have more leisure time and can afford to filter the media we consume?

More or less. Cash, wealth, and access to credit afford you a number of avenues to avoid trouble, or else get out of it when you realize that you're in it. Time infused with money also usually returns more than bare time, as anyone who can hire a personal trainer vs spending hours trying to put together an effective training regimen can attest to.

That's what I find strange too; I can afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted (most software engineers probably can), and yet I plan on keeping mine until it's dead, broken, or stolen. I don't own a car, but if I did it would probably the cheapest car in reasonably good shape that gets reasonably good gas mileage.

There's a part of me that wonders if a lot of it boils down to education. My brother-in-law is relatively smart and able to learn new stuff fairly quickly, but he doesn't really have any education past high-school. Being better trained at math and compsci would probably help him realize the value for his purchases a bit better.

>I can afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted

Maybe that's what the difference is. Being able to afford these things means you might not feel a similar need to posture that you can afford a certain lifestyle that you really can't. I'm guessing that at minimum wage most would struggle financially especially in a large city like NYC, so being able to pull the newest iPhone out of their pocket might be their way of assuring themselves and people around them that they are doing alright financially.

My wife has had more contact with poorer communities. And she believes it's partly to maintain the appearance of wealth and status. I suspect it's also a luxury within reach versus those which seem impossible: homeownership, choosing ones employer, world travel, etc.

When I was very young and didn't make much money, there didn't seem to be any point in saving it. It could have been just immaturity on my part, but short-term thinking and the availability of unsecured debt made it too easy to spend. It was a defeatist mindset. In my mind, the amount of work involved in scrimping didn't justify the very small payout.

Now that I make more, I spend even less than I did before. The reward finally justifies the work. It doesn't bear out mathematically, only emotionally.

These stories are so common, when I read it, I was thinking it was a precise description of my own brother. My brother who earns 6 times less than I purchases a 1000$ Samsung phone whereas I don't buy any phone at all and just use the handme-down from my wife, for 0$. It's a 5 year old iphone6 but still works Great. His other expenses are much lower though: for example, he has subsidized housing which means he pays almost nothing for rent. and he has no car, since he can bike to work.

Advertisment almost never works on me, so it's hard for me to imagine it's so effective on everyone else.

No one thinks advertising works on them.

That's why it works on them.

There's clearly a range of influence though, and it's not crazy to think that some people fall further on one side than others.

What's frightening is that advertising does work on all of us, even when we find it offensive.

I buy warehouse store house-brand laundry detergent, but if you put me on Family Feud and asked me to name a detergent brand, it'd be Tide.

Name/brand recognition doesn't mean it "worked". In order for it to have worked, you need to actually spend money on the product or cause someone else to spend money on the product.

I'm reasonably certain that advertising works on most people, even if they don't realize it. Being told a modified and heavily-biased narrative of the world repeatedly, for literal hours a day is likely to have an effect, even if it's subtle.

Maybe you're one of the lucky people that advertising truly does not work on, and fair enough, but I seriously doubt that these big megacorporations would spend billions of dollars on ads if there weren't some measurable effect on a majority of people.

I call everything by the name brand, but only buy the store brand.

I make FAANG salary and I bought my car used for $6k. My previous car I bought used for $7k and drove for 8 years.

Not sure if I’m filtering out ads more (haven’t had a TV for over a decade), or the tech crowd tend to be more logical. But for me personally I just don’t care about what other people think, I tend to focus on utility. But then again I don’t think twice about spending $200 on a really nice meal, so maybe just difference judgement of value.

I think it is a tech social circle thing and a tendency to go within their own constraints and less likely to be swayed into "keeping up with the Joneses" - I recall some rankings that had engineers as one of the least likely occupations to go bankrupt - and that included doctors, lawyers, and accountants.

Another possibility is that people on HN are wealthier, in part, because they are better than average at delaying gratification.

I think any doctor would tell you that the amount of fast food I eat demonstrates that I am absolutely terrible at delaying gratification :)

I'm not a huge fan of the "rich people are more naturally inclined to be rich, which is why they're rich" arguments. There are plenty of examples about how the system is somewhat rigged to keep people poor.

Thanks for saying this. I think the mindset of the comment you're replying to can be dangerous.

It’s to get rid of the shame he feels about having an older inferior phone, frequently from peers who’ve been exposed to advertising

I personally would feel quite ashamed to have the latest IPhone, I'd feel that I'd fallen prey to apple's marketing. I live pretty well with a 5 year old SE. For the same reason I refuse to wear visibly branded clothes and am not ashamed to buy some used items. Living frugally by choice gets you back some freedoms.

Certainly, but you're also a product of an environment which values that sort of self-expression. If every time you went and hung out with your friends they shamed you, saying you look homeless, you might think differently. Its certainly a sign of maturity to not really care about those things, but depending on your life trajectory different values will hit. And clearly, a lot of people value a new iphone.

OTOH - its a device that you use for hours and hours a day, for entertainment, organization, communication, and a camera. Having a "better" one is a decent investment if it helps all those areas.

It's a more widespread issue than you say. Even mature professionals give me a look when they see that I use a 2.5-year-old Note8 instead of any iPhone, let a newer one. Some verbalize their antipathy.

"American society" is the environment in which status symbols dictate the character of interactions. Wealthier people tend to value actions or experiences over objects (Do you recycle? Did you go to a "good" school?), and judge based on that, but that's not an absolute rule.

Regarding the phone, I am trying to use my phone as little as I can, but I still do use it some. If you're to chase the latest phone, latest car, you're always going to be wowed, but will miss the other parts of life which I are truly essential.

And the shaming part, I literally don't care what other people think about me in terms of these things. I dress with dignity, have good hygiene, etc so there's nothing guilting me about their expectations.

>> If every time you went and hung out with your friends they shamed you, saying you look homeless, you might think differently

Then you need to change your friends.

It's true that newer phone used to be better than older phones.

But, we're getting to the point where newer phones really aren't any better than older ones.

My new one lasts 2x as long before charging and I can take beautiful photos that aren't grainy at all like the last one. Its absolutely worth the cost for me!

It really depends on the type of upgrade. Of course if you have a really old phone it may be worth upgrading, but keeping up with the latest is a waste of money and energy.

True. I only truly got rid of mine because I was on the 2nd screen and 3rd battery, and I was tired of having to charge it so often.

> I live pretty well with a 5 year old SE.

I love my SE. I really don't want a phone any bigger than the SE.

When my SE finally stopped charging and I found out that I’d missed the window for a subsidized battery, I resigned myself to Apple never introducing that SE2, and bought a used 7 to see if I could come to grips with the larger size.

It’s ok, but still a bit bigger than I’d like. Several apps are now usable again, such as the DB (German railways) app, which I became really dependent on after selling my car.

I can’t stomach the thought of spending 500 EUR on a phone, much less 1100. I’ve gotten cheap as I enter middle age.

I would say you woke from the mirage. Upgrading to the latest is almost never worth it. Use your money on things that you really need instead

I understand that. Being around a certain crowd makes you want certain things. An architect friend said she wouldn't want to be seen using an Android when a client visits her office. I'm glad my work and friends don't pressure me as much with things like that. If anything, I'd be embarrassed to be walking around with a $1100 phone, an openly extravagant purchase.

The SE was released in March 2016. I know how much I love mine, so it can definitely feel like it's been five years. ;)

> My brother-in-law is overall a smart guy, but he works at Taco Bell full-time, making minimum wage in NYC (~$15/hour). He decided that he needed the newest iPhone 11, presumably because of some good marketing, spent over a grand (through financing of course...ugh), and he'll spend the next year paying it off.

Apple has made this (buying, or rather leasing, a new iPhone every year) a lot easier to get addicted to and seemingly cheaper through the iPhone Upgrade Program.

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