Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

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I've thought about this a lot. Across a all of my hobbies I've seen shrinking markets, decreasing sales, fewer consumers, decreased companies in the space.. and offset by higher prices and longer product cycles.

1) I think it's partially a time thing. You read economists vision of the future back 50-75 years ago and they imagined automation would give us more leisure time.

In practice there's a bifurcation with the K shaped economy where a lot of white collar jobs have become more time demanding (nights/weekends) such that we have a lot more money but even less time. So more than ever before, we try to by shortcuts to time/happiness with money. I find I have a lot of trouble finding long blocks of time to spend uninterrupted on my hobbies.

2) Along with this society has become ever more consumeristic. I note that across my friends and acquaintances, it doesn't strike me that many even.. have hobbies. Hobbies are almost an oddity now.

1&2 conflate to make for a lot of hobbyist GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) such that people spend more time reading/watching reviews/shopping/trading gear than they do actually doing their hobbies. Its a lot easier to spend 30min during my lunch break shopping for some accessories than it is to get away from my desk and actually do my hobby.

I read something once that said there’s 4 main modes for interacting with any hobby: doing the thing, talking about doing the thing, collecting gear for doing the thing, and talking about gear for doing the thing

This is brilliant and absolutely describes my personal experience. I think the “doing the thing” can also be broken down into subcategories of “doing the thing with the thing” and “keeping the thing working to do the thing”. My hobbies are motorcycles and pinball machines. They both require significant maintenance time, to the point that alone could be a hobby.

I heard it described as: motorcycle riding actually consists of two hobbies, riding and maintenance. Most people can't afford to only participate in the riding.

I think each riding maintenence have their own four quadrents.

Having thought about this a bit more I think hobbies are recursive.

I buy a motorcycle. I talk about the motorcycle. I ride the motorcycle. Riding motorcycles is a hobby now.

The motorcycle needs maintenance. I talk about the maintenance. I do the maintenance. Motorcycle maintenance is a hobby mow.

A part is unavailable. I talk about making the part. I buy a welder. I make the part. Welding is a hobby now.

This is spot on, and also its worth noting there are different time/energy requirements for each of these modes.

I can text my friend in the same hobby randomly throughout the day, listen to gear reviews while I do some rote work, and shop for accessories on my lunch break.

But depending on the hobby, I might need a solid 1-2 hour block of time to really get into actually doing anything. Some are even worse if setup/cleanup or any travel is involved. And for some hobbies daylight & weather must cooperate.

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2023/04/20/hobbies.html maybe

Another thought this triggered for me, related to photo: A lot of hobbies as they digitize have moved to having 0 OpEx but much higher CapEx.

Photography for example, bodies/lenses didn't change much for 10-20 years, and didn't cost that much. There was recurring expense for film/dev/prints that scaled with your usage, and arguably you could GAS out on those smaller purchases.

In the film era for reference, you had Nikon F 1959, F2 1971, F3 1980, F4 1988, F5 1996, F6 2004. The entire film era Nikon had 6 flagships in 45 years! You could use the same camera for 20 years and only be maybe 1~2 generations behind at the end! There just wasn't much to upgrade to.

With digital bodies cost a ton, and even as we've slowed advancement.. you still get a new flagship body every 3-4 years (down from as little as 2 years in the early Sony A7 days). Some is tech advancement but a lot of it is parcelling out improvements sparingly cycle by cycle to try to drive sales in our modern higher consumption era.

Yes, that’s it, thank you for finding it!

I grew up in a small town near four corners and as a pre-teen and teen during the summers I probably spent every 3rd night outdoors, hiking to some new place in the backcountry. I didn't have money and sure didn't have "gear". Outdoors stuff, which used to be a basically fiscally free hobby, has somehow turned into one of the most expensive hobbies one can get into. I've sometimes fallen victim to the latter three points and try to constantly remind myself that I used to do backpacking trips with nothing but a canteen, box of matches, a few cans of beans or soup, and jeans.

Yes, I have no interest in backpacking/camping at all, but every time I walk by a Snow Peak I want to buy the entire store and take up the hobby.

Somewhat related to that, I find it absurd that my wife and children need to track down their water bottles anytime we go anywhere out of the house. It really takes an extra 5 to 10 minutes to leave because invariably at least one of the children has lost his bottle. We could just be going to a grocery store, but they have to have hydration.

The only time I ever had a water bottle as a child was when I was playing soccer. We got one water break after our endurance run at the beginning and one halfway through practice. Didn't have one when I was playing baseball. Didn't have one when I was on the golf team, unless it was blistering hot out. Never brought one for day-hikes. Just showed up and did whatever and maybe stopped at a public water fountain on the way out.

I don't want them to be uncomfortable, this isn't a "back in my day, we suffered, and we liked it" sort of post. I should have had water for more of those activities (well, not baseball, it's not a real sport sorrynotsorryyouknowit'strue). I just wish they had a little more perspective on when we really need to stock up on provisions for an excursion and would not add a 10 minute delay to a trip that should take 30 minutes.

"hobbyist GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) such that people spend more time reading/watching reviews/shopping/trading gear than they do actually doing their hobbies. "

That's a huge problem for photographers and bikers. Much easier and less time and effort consuming to buy nice gear than to actually use it.

It's hugely problematic for both for likely the same reason - daylight and climate.

I have 20+ years of metadata on my photo catalog and it's funny how seasonal it is for me living in the northeast. For years I would try dabbling in things like macro and birding just to do SOMETHING in the long cold season, but it's always been a waste of money for me.

Meanwhile I've started dabbling in music and the fact I can just spin my chair over to my other desk, regardless of time/light/temprature and get on with it is very freeing.

Automation did give us more leisure time. It's just unevenly distributed!

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