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Comment by nerdchum | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot of times this philosophy is just rich people justifying paying a lot for high status items.

a pair of Crocs is 50 bucks and that's one of the highest quality pairs of shoes you'll buy for the price. you could buy 10 pairs of Crocs for a $500 pair of Alden's so even if the crocs only lasted a year, it would take a decade to recoup the investment on the Alden's.

but the crocs don't have the same status that Alan Edmonds or Alden or Fiorentini does.

Same thing with the G-Shock watch versus a Rolex.

If you really want quality look at what middle class people are doing. Crocs, Kirkland, G-Shock, Corolla etc.

All this stuff is top quality but rich people wouldn't be caught dead in them.

Another thing rich people like to do is repurposing something completely trivial. This dude probably paid as much or close to shipping the shoes than a new wallet would have cost.

This guy gets a feeling of satisfaction that they're making the world a better place by repurposing their shoes. Then they go to their job where they earn a lot of money defending companies who gave a small town cancer or a massive oil spill or wholesale invasion of privacy.

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Completely agree. People love to tout the boots theory but the reality is that the people who claim this are often far beyond the point of optimal cost. Mass manufacturing inherently allows for better value to be delivered at greater scale, which tends to occur at the lower end of the price range. Beyond a certain point you're paying for prestige rather than lifespan.

I've had the same wallet for 10 years. It cost me $16 and was made from recycled leather scraps (thanks, Phil's wallets!). I plan to use it at least another 10 years. Will the $115 wallet pushed in this article really last 7x longer than my scrap wallet? I doubt it.

It really depends what you mean by “optimal cost” and “better value”. For example, if you want something that’s handcrafted rather than made in a factory on the other side of the world, you have to pay for the skills and labor that go into that. Depending on what it is, it might not last longer - but could be a better value in other respects than simply cost. Not everything has to be about making widgets for the lowest amount of money possible.

Of course. If you change the requirements the decision space shifts too. With respect to the boots theorem optimal cost is specifically focused on long-term concrete utility per dollar. Fwiw I'd (very loosely) classify the points you're bringing under "prestige".

> Fwiw I'd (very loosely) classify the points you're bringing under "prestige".

If I'd like my clothes made and sourced ethically, or if I want to support a local business that makes leather goods rather than buying mass-produced ones from somewhere else -- I wouldn't say those scenarios are motivated by prestige, but by valuing people and the work they do. It's a bit unfortunate that some things like that are considered a luxury these days.

> It's a bit unfortunate that some things like that are considered a luxury these days.

Those always were a luxury. Before mass production most people just couldn't afford to have things as we do nowadays.

$50/$500 is a 10%/year yield, which is hard come by in any guaranteed investment. The Crocs will likely have no retained value, while the $500 shoes may be worth something after 10 years.

However, that ignores the cost of maintaining a nice pair of shoes (both money and time) as one needs to clean, polish, and resole every so often.

You might want shoes in two or three colors/styles, which would make the Crocs last 2-3x longer, same for the other shoes, but are you really going to want the same expensive shoes in 30 years?

I think the higher end stuff that retains value and requires less maintenance might be a better example, like if someone is good at buying watches they could get a Rolex that appreciates in value and ends up costing them nothing vs a series of cheaper watches. Or compare to a $500 Apple Watch you replace every couple years. I don’t wear watches, though, and I’m not good at buying or selling them.

Really, I think there are some expensive, durable goods that last longer and are cheaper you might think, but still more expensive once you take into account the maintenance and time value of money. But nice stuff is nice to have, and it’s helpful that you don’t have to replace it so often.

Oh completely agree. My beef is with this smug patronizing attitude rich people have like theyre wise for buying expensive things that will last longer and the rest of us peons should learn from these wise sages. When thats not the case at all. You want to learn how to buy quality things look at a middle class family of four wearing big old granny Kirkland panties and driving a Subaru.

Their overhead on purchases is low AND their returns are high.

> The Crocs will likely have no retained value, while the $500 shoes may be worth something after 10 years.

This is the core of the “secret” to wearing high quality shoes at a low cost. Buy good used shoes and get them resoled as necessary. E.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/1jhp8o/a...

I did that for a while. Resoling is $150 or more which is more than a normal pair of shoes costs.

A Rolex still requires very expensive maintenance every couple years (hundreds of dollars) just to do basic timekeeping. Absurdly, an Apple Watch upgraded every 4 years is probably cheaper to maintain. A high quality quartz is probably the financially smart option.

This isn’t a totally fair comparison. When people buy shoes, their criteria isn’t normally as low as “covers my feet”. They have a specific style they want, a specific material, and will shop amongst shoes that fit that description. Crocs and dress shoes are not interchangeable to a lot of people.

A better comparison is to look at, for instance, Johnston and Murphy vs. Alden. Then you get a more fair comparison. For instance, one has welted soles and so they can be replaced without changing out the upper. Those soles are leather and provide excellent comfort. One uses full grain leather uppers, one does not. Everyone doesn’t need those, but if you’re someone who is wearing dress shoes to the office every day, it may be worth the benefit. You also don’t have to worry about replacing the shoe every year (though you do have to maintain it).

Agree. Theres alot of factors involved in buying anything.

So we need to stop acting like we have great wisdom for "Paying more for quality" when in reality status and fashion had as much to do with the purchase as well.

No, I think we need to stop contriving obviously skewed examples like Aldens vs Crocs. Boots vs shitty holey rubber sandals isn't a good comparison.

Maybe compare backpack, or suits, or something along those lines.

"obvioudly skewed" how?

Its pretty much the perfect example imo

Aldens vs cheapo 20 dollar amazon boots would be a better comparison. You ain't wearing Crocs with a suit my man.

I wear a suit maybe once every five years though.

Like the rest of my life I could wear either Alden or crocs....and I do.

You pick one extreme edge case.

My criteria is maybe less fancy than other people. Covers my feet + isn’t embarrassing + durable + potential arch support + cheap.

I’ve never found shoes that meet all those criteria. I’ve actually never found any shoes, ever, that were even durable or had usable arch support. So cheap + not embarrassing is pretty much the bar to cross

But I learned recently that crocks have amazing arch support!

What kind of arch support do you need? I've found that superfeet insoles work great for my flat feet. I buy them whenever they're on sale.

They also make my cheap slip on shoes last much longer.

Fair warning. I have not found Crocs to be particularly arch supportive. there may be a specific model though that I'm not aware of that. has added arch support.

Hiking shoes are usually pretty durable and supportive.

For the shoes example, there's also value in reducing waste. 10 pairs of rubber Crocs that you throw out every year create much more waste than 1 pair of 500 dollar leather boots that can be repaired and are much more environmentally friendly when they are eventually disposed of.

100% agree about the Corolla though.

I'm not so sure about this comparison even. There are multiple factors at play that you're just assuming, that the $500 leather boots are going to be worn for 10 years to be equivalent to the crocs, but I'm not sure that's the norm. Excluding those who have the means easily for $500 leather boots, who likely will just buy more of them to rotate (thus creating waste). Surely someone who spends $500 on leather boots is also going to care about their status, and therefore might get them repaired far more often.

These repairs, while likely less wasteful than full-on recycling, have costs attributed to them. It costs to produce the goods required to repair. These goods often aren't super sustainable products either. With these factors in mind, is the comparison equal? Can we absolutely stand by the idea that paying for $500 leather boots will be better for the environment and you for 10 years?

Which is why when making these comparisons we should really get into the nitty gritty details, otherwise we're just handwaving a bunch of things and making assumptions to justify our position. By doing so, we'll be able to make better choices with proper information rather than shifting the burden of environmental impact elsewhere (to a repair shop or shoe makers, etc).

Note, this is not a defense of crocs vs leather boots. The product categories are just throwaway examples.

Right, because reducing waste is what people buying $500 shoes are worried about.

Corolla is a terrible example. It’s not a nice car to actually drive compared to almost any other. In that price range: Subaru and Honda will be as reliable and much better cars.

False. Corollas are one of the best cars ever made.

I had a relatively recent Corolla. I put some leather seat covers and floor liners in it and it was nice.

Waste disposal is usually a flat rate though, so it doesn't really matter how much waste you produce in financial terms.

From the documentary Idiocracy: Idiocracy director Mike Judge revealed that they went with Crocs both because they were cheap and that "no one would ever wear them." To the surprise of Judge and Idiocracy's wardrobe department, by the time the film came out after a delay, Crocs were all over the place.”

In fact you could save more money by wrapping your feet in used burlap sacks. Just need to be creative.

Right because Hollywood is great to look to for advice on how to buy low cost high quality items....

Idiocracy is exceptionally prophetic. And we've still got people seriously evaluating if GPT can be better than your doctor.

"Exceptionally" I think you might be thinking its more prophetic than it actually is.

It's more prophetic than the overwhelming majority of futuristicistic movies. Exceptionally does not equal extremely.

Also see Demolition Man.

you should write a blog post or something about it. I don't find it very prophetic but would like to hear other people's opinions.

Here's an article and discussion. I find the article somewhat lacking, but oh well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29737533

I would say rich people who want to signal status would not get caught with those. But there are plenty of rich folks who want to fly under the radar, your millionaire next door types.

Crocs are not utilitarian (no structure or support for physical activity) and they aren’t appropriate in the wider spectrum a nice pair of shoes are.

I settled on some classic Vans after a deep internet dive signaled that they’re the most popular among homeless people for being durable and comfortable without being too expensive. They look fine, and I have a lot of freedom regarding when to replace them. I’m very happy with the decision actually. As an added benefit, they’re a welcome donation to the homeless if I don’t completely wear them out (which is basically impossible).

$500 sounds about right to me for the leather equivalent of the Vans. By the time you’ve accounted for durability and comfort without sacrificing appearances (and done it such that they can be attractively resoled) you’ll spend around that much.

I don’t have a wardrobe to match leather shoes, but the logic holds here if I did. You don’t have to be rich to daily drive a single pair of nice shoes, and the author’s tone didn’t strike me as snobbish or smug.

It’s just a different attitude. Lots of more expensive clothing gets you added features, better style, and better comfort than Kirkland. Expensive athleisure brands like Lululemon and Alo, for example, have pockets in better places and are more attractive than their Kirkland equivalents. The directly equivalent spending on the two makes for a smaller wardrobe that gets worn more often. If you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, have a quick discussion with it about fashion. Its training is not among content from the rich but rather the internet at large, and even it will tell you that fewer nicer fashion choices make a better wardrobe than more less expensive pieces.

Every pair of vans I bought fell apart in a year. I think they used to be quality back in the day before they got popular and shipped their manufacturing overseas. I've never seen a homeless person in vans but that's just me.

The Sk8 Hi, or whatever it is, is the only pair of shoes I wear aside from some rain boots. They show little sign of wear after two years. I’ve also had an interesting and and slightly uncomfortable interaction with a homeless person saying “nice old school kicks” and giving me a high five. So my anecdotal data definitely holds up. Perhaps it’s the model. I also have a musician friend who’s been wearing the same pair of the same model for 10 years including a tour.

This even happens with expensive shoe brands. Loakes and Church’s are two such brands of shoes and Danner boots used to be decent too.

Small shoe makers get a good reputation for quality then can’t keep up with demand and sell or partner with huge fashion companies which cut costs and offshore manufacturing while keeping the price high.

Enshitification for shoes I guess.

Would you mind sharing some resources from your deep internet dive (if you still have them at hand) or maybe even just sharing the Vans model? Thanks.

The dive was mostly archived Reddit threads.

https://www.vans.com/en-us/shoes-c00081/sk8-hi-canvas-shoe-p...

The way I would put the Crocs thing is that they are not versatile. Maybe you could live a whole life with a pair of Crocs and a pair of well made leather shoes. But in that situation a minimalism extremist might ask: what are the Crocs for? You can wear the leather shoes around the house but you can't wear the Crocs to a wedding.

But I think your point is generally true, though I'm not convinced it is very responsive to this specific article. I didn't get much preachiness from this article, but maybe it was there, or maybe you are familiar with this person's other writing, I dunno.

My take is that "minimalism" is indeed often a status game as you say, but that it also has good insights for the rest of us who aren't interested in those games, but do feel this sense of having too much junk cluttering up our lives.

I'm far from a "true" minimalist, but reading stuff like this over the years has totally impacted my thinking. When thinking about buying things now, I do think about whether I could spend a little more for something I'll be able to use a lot more. Or even ignoring price differences either way, I just evaluate things from this perspective of durability. And I think that's good.

Pretty on the nose.

I think even more accurate is that quality/longevity and price are almost completely decoupled.

Spending more doesn’t guarantee higher quality it mostly gets you exceptional graphic design and deftly nested packaging that makes you feel good when you open it.

But it’s not like all the cheap stuff is better. A Rolex is an incredible engineering marvel and is in fact very high quality and durable. So are Festool tools, and so on.

But like so is G-shock and a random and difficult to pin down subset of Harbor Freight.

The broader point is that none of this really makes a fucking difference most of the discussion is just people preening about their choices instead of admitting it’s mostly a roll of the dice.

And the old stuff wasn’t “better” it was just different. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s garages were full of shoddy junk from the 50’s and 60’s. That stuff is just all gone right now.

Yeah completely agree that price is decoupled from quality nowadays and it's pretty random.

Price seems to be based a lot more on marketing and brand saturation than quality. And quality brands get bought up all the time and the new company will coast on the brand while outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder.

And you can't trust reviews with affiliate marketing around.

So pretty much the only thing to do to identify quality is to experiment or share info with people you trust.

I've wasted a ton of money on shitty products on the way to identifying quality products.

I'm not even railing against status. I bought a pair of Alan Edmonds specifically for job interviews to signal status but I wear LL Bean shoes and Crocs the rest of the time.

Also, there's other factors besides just durability and status. There's aesthetics, variable utility, ease of replacement, warranty availability, price, etc.

I hate shopping so I think alot about this haha

In the world of fashion perhaps. In the world of tools, absolutely not.

In human society its arguable that fashion is a tool of communication. At least thats how I have to justify it to myself because I hate being forced to participate in it but we all are constantly being judged on how we look.

My reply was strictly in regards to

> Yeah completely agree that price is decoupled from quality nowadays

In the world of physic tools, price and quality are highly coupled.

To your other points, I honestly think fashion is very rewarding and healthy so long as you are focused on making yourself look good to you. And I agree, some fashion conformity is unavoidable. Especially depending upon your career field.

The area in which this drives me the craziest is furniture. I have no idea how to find high quality durable furniture. Price signals definitely aren't it, but I have no idea what signals I can look for, or where to go to find them.

Furniture is INSANE!

Ive never felt like I was in a more skeezy situation than mattress shopping.

In general: pick the heaviest ones.

You have to learn enough about how they are built and then haunt local consignment shops for good finds.

It’s taken my wife and I years to slowly get pieces that will last the rest of our life.

I have two young children, I don't have time to "haunt" anything. But before we had kids we tried this with consignment stores, would spend like a year looking for some simple piece of furniture, and end up with junk anyway.

Design Within Reach, Herman Miller, Room & Board, Blu Dot, ...

Thanks this is really helpful. But how do I know what is or isn't junk at these retailers? None of the ones on this list have a showroom near me. And what goes in the ... ?

> A Rolex is an incredible engineering marvel and is in fact very high quality and durable.

But it's fundamentally worse at being a timepiece than a digital watch synchronized to an NTP time server.

This is a completely different device than a mechanical watch. Nobody cross shops GPS watches with a Rolex. Maybe a grand Seiko.

It's a Rube Goldberg machine.

Not after a nuclear war.

Sure it is. Even a relatively poor quality Quartz watch is higher accuracy than a mechanical watch, without any sort of synchronization. Really good ones are accurate to one second per year. No need for NTP at all.

If you're thinking about EMPs or something: well, I'd consider extremely accurate timekeeping to be the least of your concerns if no electronics work anymore...

Crocs aren't shoes. I understand what you are trying to say. But that was a lousy comparison. Even if you consider Crocs shoes, you typically won't wear them the same place you will wear Aldens.

this is false. people wear Aldens all the time and people wear crocs all the time to all kinds of different functions and events.

But "buying for quality" and "buying for status" are different, and I don't think rich people conflate the two (or the people here). The person buying Louis Vuitton luggage (or whatever rich people buy these days) knows they are buying it for status among their similarly wealthy friends. Although, you also get counter-signaling among "old money" types, where it's seen as déclassé to try too hard; they wouldn't be seen dead with something as vulgar as Louis Vuitton luggage.

However, I don't think this conversation is about them.

The smart middle class family buys the best they can afford given their budget, but the less-smart family buys the cheapest 'Buy well, buy once' encourages the first approach.

Sure a lot of stuff is high status crap (like the LV weekender bag that was torn apart here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EktumN7N5l8).

But your comparisons don't factor in total cost of ownership and usage, and in fact many quality brands you do pay up for quality and better cost of ownership.

I can wear crocs at home. I would look disrespectful wearing them to a funeral. I can wear Alden anywhere though I might be overdressed for many occassions.

Aldens can be resoled and repaired and can last decades, the cost-per-wear can be very low. And many models of Aldens can be sold for a pretty penny (as an example these https://www.ebay.com/itm/394665864763 still go for nearly $300 even after years of wear). So if you bought Aldens new for $500 and wore for a decade and sold for $300 your cost per wear would be lower than that of the crocs. You would also be doing better for the environment by reusing the clothing and requiring less total material for your feet over a lifetime.

This also applies to a very few select watchmakers (and in fact increase in value). A Rolex or Patek Philippe has essentially beat inflation and would be considered a smart investment that made you money even while you wear it. A G-Shock would not offer similar returns.

Actually a lot of quality clothing can be like this. I thrifted a Tom Ford shirt for $40, wore it for a decade to weddings and funerals, and then sold it for $150. Certain makers are heavily discounted on second hand but retain their value. Borrelli shirts are some of the best on the planet. Would I pay retail? No. But you can buy them, wear them, and sell them second hand and pay virtually 0 to wear them over time.

Furniture is one where I've yet to find cheaper furniture paying off. A lot of particleboard furniture is awful. And it's all over Wayfair. The stuff I've had passed down or that I've bought that's lasted decades are all from North Carolina furniture makers. Not all of that stuff is expensive or high status but it is well made.

Expensive things are not always bad. Oftentimes the price is not justified. But it's not exclusive.

This a 1000 times. Those kind of articles are just rich people showing off, seeking attention, they must have indeed a miserably or fake life to even think that other cares about the brand of their shoes or mattresses (except other equally unhappy people. A shoe is a shoe, a mattress is a mattress, a sofa is a sofa. There's more important things in life that those details.

> Corolla etc.

Fun way to think about it (borrowed from James May): A Toyota Corolla is higher quality than a Rolls Royce. Because Toyota makes 10,000,000 vehicles per year. Rolls makes only 6,000. Meaning Toyota is better at making cars just by virtue of having 4 orders of magnitude more practice.

The original formulation of this theory (in Car and Driver iirc) was that it’s harder to make a water pump for a Chevrolet than a Mercedes, because you had to meet a tight cost objective for the Chevrolet.

In practice, it just meant Chevy often cheaped out on the water pump and you got water pump failures after the warranty expired.

This however is balanced by material quality. Rolls Royce can use more expensive alloys and premium leather that do not degrade as quickly and still have plenty of margin.

Corolla designers are highly constrained by cost.

Except that’s not true. So…

RR is made by BMW these days. So it’s almost certain to be awful.

BMWs are also higher quality than Corollas.

They have more features, but they break down a ton more often. By all means, if you want ventilated seats then you can get a higher end BMW, but that's a different metric from quality.

You can get ventilated seats on Hondas and Hyundais. You don’t need to pay high-end BMW money.

No they don’t. BMW is consistently in the top 5 rankings for reliability.

They’re just better cars, made to more exacting standards with higher quality materials and better engineering and features.

> BMW is consistently in the top 5 rankings for reliability.

And Toyota consistently ranks higher.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/most-reliable-and-least-reliab...

Yes so a Corolla is a lower quality car with comparable or slightly higher reliability stats.

Unless you think the word quality is just fully synonymous with reliability (in which case a paper airplane beats an F-18) then my point stands.

I don't know that 72% to 65% is comparable or slightly higher. That seems like a gap to me. And the fact that BMW ranked 10th last year isn't great.

Quality is famously subjective, that's why you'll never see it ranked in a way that everyone can agree on the way you can with reliability which is actually measurable.

But reliability is one of the markers that most people would use to judge quality. And we generally expect aircraft to go where we want them to without catastrophic failure, so I would think that an F18 is more reliable than a paper plane.

The reliability rankings are determined by surveying people and asking them the frequency of repairs.

Assuming my paper airplane never goes into the shop it’s going to outrank the F-18.

Ain’t a better plane though.

Well, again "better" is subjective and you would want to agree on some metrics before deciding.

Say I wanted a low-cost, lightweight, hand-propelled aircraft capable of flying short distances indoors that I could fold up and put in my pocket afterwards? Which would be the "better" plane then?

Better in this case is durability and there's no way of BMW is more durable than a Toyota Corolla and that is objective.

A brick handily beats both.

The other end of this is companies manufacturing products that are questionably eco-friendly and certainly less durable leading to a worse off situation to everyone except them.

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