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Comment by trilobyte | Hacker News Reader

For most people the amortized cost of a phone over its life is pretty small. If you spend $1000 on a phone and it lasts you 3 years, that's ~$28 a month. A lot of people spend that on coffee each month. The value they get out of their smart phone dwarfs most other big expenses.

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Tech is a really weird field; I think because of the high salaries, a lot of people are rich without realising they're rich. Tech is the "Nouveau rich". $28 a month on coffee is rather large amount to spend on coffee.

No, $28 not a large amount to spend on coffee. That's a McDonald's medium coffee 3.5 days a week. How is that a lot to spend on coffee? That's just silly. A lot to spend on coffee is $150/mo with a $5 latte at Starbucks each day and that's certainly more common than the house painter getting a McDonald's coffee on half his workdays.

Ok, "decent amount": Buying a coffee at McDonald's 3.5 days a week is a decent amount to spend on coffee. $150 is absurd. The "house painter" is making their own coffee before work.

The value they get is identical they would get if they spent half of it.

Unless, idk, you're so deep into the Apple ecosystem, e.g. that it makes sense to stay in the gardened wall and lower any kind of friction.

> The value they get is identical they would get if they spent half of it.

I'm pretty sure that the camera on my Pixel is twice as good as the OnePlus that it replaced.

But the photos are nowhere near twice as good.

Eh, they are when motion is involved.

Rationalizing a purchase because the monthly payments are small is a terrible way to approach shopping. If you don't have the money to pay for it upfront, you can't afford it. Full stop. People actually finance their phones, believe it or not. It boggles the mind.

People making an average hourly don't think of things that way. Paying $28/month for a phone provides much more liquidity for the unexpected, when the other option is spending over 25% of your months income, you're SOL if your car breaks for whatever reason, or you get a flat tire, or your water bill was unusually high.

Something something cheap boot vs. expensive boot something something…

They're not saying finance a phone. They're saying $1000 is not that much for a device you use throughout every waking hour for several years. The monthly framing helps understand cost as a rate, as we experience value as a rate.

OP wasn’t talking about a loan payment.

I assume, then, of course, that you bought (or would buy) your house in cash only? After all, "If you don't have the money to pay for it upfront, you can't afford it. Full stop."

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