> Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed
This definition is quite easy to distinguish ordinary desire from greed. Otherwise you need to render selfish and excessive banal and meaningless as well.
They did not need doctors, daycare, helmets, cars (they sat 5+ to a motorcycle), air conditioning, avocados, bedrooms, computers, etc.
Context and our norms is what determines it.
One of my cousins' parents immigrated to the Bay Area, but mine went to the midwest. Am I greedy for desiring to earn income more than a couple standard deviations above the mean so that I could buy land in the Bay Area? Is my cousin not greedy because they were born there?
>Context and our norms is what determines it.
Exactly, which is the problem with trying to distinguish "desire" and "greed". "We" don't have norms. I was lambasted growing up by my grandparents for wanting things that any 1990s kid had in the US, but they didn't have in their poorer country from 1920 to 1940.
It isn't my definition, it's Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I suggest reading the definition more carefully, it really isn't that hard to understand. That is how the word is used.
All of your examples are not selfish or excessive. So not greedy. That it isn't a clear bright line isn't a problem, most judgements in life are not clear cut.