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Comment by ramraj07 | Hacker News Reader

This is clearly directed at people with some amount of disposable income. Also many may value their time and money differently. I used fancyhands for a bit when I was on a grad student salary and I thought it was worth my time even then. Last year I saw a C level exec in a mid size startup spend 20 min on hold with a credit card company to dispute some booking. I was wondering why they would not offload that.

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More specifically, I think it's directed at people (like me and apparently the author) who grew up, and maybe even spent a while as an adult, without much or any disposable income, but now are lucky enough to have some. It is taking me years to unlearn habits that no longer make sense for my situation, simply because when you're poor, so much of your life revolves around optimizing for money that it takes many, many reminders that it's ok to place value on time as well.

I have a bunch of friends that grew up working class, and they still, consistently, value their own time at 0. Regardless of their actual adult income. Which means they often spend ridiculous amounts of time and effort to save tiny amounts of money.

I grew up lower middle class instead, so I have other stupid frugal habits. Growing up, my parents never, ever, ever replaced a thing that was working. The only time you were allowed to replace a thing was when it was irredeemably broken.

Took me a while to get rid of that habit.

I know what you mean, but I've come to understand that some people subconsciously enjoy that kind of 'penny wise' behavior. My wife does a lot of things I consider to be a huge waste of time when it comes to saving small amounts of money (like making specific combinations of orders because they're a deal and so on) but they perceive it differently. It's like part hobby and part pathological addiction.

I think it's a hobby the same way sim gaming is: a small hit of dopeamine for a micro-optimization and exercising control of one's life.

> "Growing up, my parents never, ever, ever replaced a thing that was working. The only time you were allowed to replace a thing was when it was irredeemably broken."

That just sounds like common sense to me. Why replace a washing machine that still works just fine? For some gimmicky features or a shiny modern industrial design?

I fall firmly in the camp of not replacing stuff that works, clothes that still fit and aren't worn out, anything that still serves its purpose. Obviously I will repair or modify things to the extent of my skills to keep them going, clothes and computers are what I'm best at.

My TV is a 42" LG LCD that I picked up for $20 ages ago when my company was moving to a new office building. It works perfectly, supports 1080p and the picture quality is good after the usual adjustments I would have to do on a new TV anyway. None of the new TVs I can buy offer any real tangible improvements that make them worth the additional cost.

Sure, when this TV eventually breaks, I'll probably replace it with one that's slightly larger, 50-55" would be ideal for the space I have on the wall. But there's no need to rush that upgrade.

Consumerism has broken people's brains, they're stuck in an eternal loop of trying to keep up with the Joneses, never happy with what they already have. It's unhealthy and wasteful.

What about things in-between like an extremely slow and limited laptop that still works? How long do you keep it?

My current laptop is an X220i (with upgraded RAM, SSD, WLAN and battery), which is a ~2012 vintage machine. It runs openSUSE with no issues and plays 60fps YouTube videos smoothly.

My desktop machine is 2011 vintage hardware (Phenom II X6 with 16GB RAM), upgraded piecemeal to an SSD and a Radeon RX560. It plays the games I like to play (currently GTA V and Mudrunner) in 1080p on max settings and it's obviously plenty powerful for ordinary desktop applications.

If a PC does eventually become too slow to be practical in daily use, then I would say it's no longer really fit for purpose. That happened with my old Chromebook, which couldn't even play Youtube videos smoothly after they changed the codecs. It happened with my old P4-based PC, but the person I gave it to kept using it for years for basic desktop stuff.

I just don't replace stuff for the sake of upgrading, so I buy very little new stuff and keep what I have for a long time. I prefer spending more up front for something I know will last, and based on how much use i expect out of it. I'm not going to buy a super fancy drill, since I only need to drill holes a couple of times per year, so a basic one is fine. On the other hand, I prefer walking to get around, so I buy good quality footwear that lasts and can be repaired.

Great example from yesterday for me: wife complained about our toaster oven and that it is a pain (burns food among other things) and misses an older one we had that died. Old one ~$100, current one $35. She said we will just have to wait for this one to die and then get a good one. This was a good mentality when we were pinching pennies but I make FAANG money and told her it is totally fine to toss the toaster oven. She is still chewing on that idea as it feels wasteful.

Edit: I fully agree with you on all your examples. Just wanted to give a counter example.

Just the fact that you're discussing it and not just buying a new one as a reflexive action is good. There's a good argument to be made that your current toaster oven is not fit for purpose.

> that still works just fine

Yeah, but that's now what I wrote.

There's a long, long, infuriating way between "works just fine" and "irredeemably broken". Trust me, I know.

Sure, however if it still fulfills its primary function, even with a little bit of "personality", it's still fit for purpose.

Obviously, if a washing machine doesn't complete the washing cycle or a toaster doesn't toast right, it does need to be fixed or possibly replaced.

while i agree on tv, switching from 8ms response time monitor to 1ms with 100% srgb coverage and proper contrast made me able to skim on text much faster.

> Growing up, my parents never, ever, ever replaced a thing that was working.

Same, but I think that's a good thing. The culture of throwing things away and buying new ones just for the fun of it is bad for the future of humanity. I only replace things that are working when I have certainty that the still-working thing can be useful to someone else.

just curious, but (how) would it be possible to offload this with a financial service like a bank or credit card company? don’t they check your identity? can you really authorize someone else to do it without sharing sensitive details with them??

(I guess the super rich can have very trusted employees with such access, or banks provide white glove service at some point, but that’s clearly different)

In theory the owner should have a better relationship with their bank so they don't deal with that sort of thing.

You can add a signatory to a bank account (and I'm guessing to a credit card as well). I don't know of any services that specialize in nit-picking through the use of an authorized signer however part of said hypothetical service could be to bond / insure that the secondary signer doesn't take some sort of negative action that leaves the account/owner in bad standing.

But again you're running into the ultimate question of why isn't your bank / credit card taking care of you...maybe it's because the bank / CC just make money off of the fiduciary mishaps of the owner when they don't have 20 minutes to wait on hold.

You can authorize other people to use your credit cards. Totally legit. Merchants can accept it or request verification.

Most of the virtual assistant services have you store your spending details for this exact scenario.

If you have a net worth of a few hundred thousand dollars you can engage in "private banking" services with many major banks. You will be paired with a banker who can work as your advocate, bend internal rules, and cut down the amount of time required to deal with disputes. If your card happens to be issued by that bank, I would imagine they could assist with aspects of that.

If you have substantially more money than that then you can enlist financial professionals to legally act on your behalf and settle disputes for you.

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