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I understand that. But it’s a bad analogy. Because when when you build something yourself it’s not the same piece of furniture.

You may love it because you made it, fine. But you also may love it because it’s exactly what you need. You may hate it because you tried to build it on a shoestring budget and you got what you paid for.

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I am struggling to think of a more fitting analogy to describe this overvaluation of self-assembled items.

What’s similar to IKEA, as in the self-assembly bit, but also doesn’t have the “it’s exactly what I need” effect that confounds the “I love it because I assembled it myself” measurement?

Or maybe I’ll just call it the Effort Effect. Ugly, but I’m not much of a marketer so I’ll take it.

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