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Comment by dur0nat0r | Hacker News Reader

Rich people problems (sigh)

I would hardly call this "rich people problems". I know many who make roughly 60-80K a year, and I would certainly not call them rich, and they still purchase cars with a sticker price of 50K.

Is it a wise decision to make such a purchase? No. Is it commonplace? Yes.

Also, it's an early adopter price. It'll decrease a bit with time. This is a luxury car.

Also, this isn't Reddit. Contribute something of value to the conversation.

You are describing the type of consumer who has a problem with a $600 a year fee -- the ones who can't really afford the product or service in the first place.

This is a wide spread business marketing issue. You have different classes of consumers, and often the loudest complainers are the one who are on low level or free versions. Do they complain loudly because they are the only ones who have time to? May be its just their personality and why they don't have any money? I don't know.

From a business owner standpoint it is pretty easy to see how irrational the original article author's position is. However, it presents a dilemma between choosing to pacify this type of customer vs just ignoring them. Each has its share of downsides.

With due respect, a 'high level' customer can buy just another car if he has problem with it, he can afford to, while 'low level' customers have to speak out loud because that is all what they have, it is a heavy and rare investment for them.

The 'issue' is not morally acceptable. First of all there shouldn't be any distinction between customers, it is the company's responsibility to offer the best product, whoever the customer is. How can you be ignorant to a customer who invests a big chunk of his earnings to buy your product.

Offering what's best for the customer is a balancing act with what's best for the company. If only 2% of your customers are likely to have issues with a given item, it may not be worth raising the price 10% for everyone just to appease those 2%. (disclaimer, I'm picking random numbers here, no relation to the item in question)

> 60-80K

Selection bias. Vast majority of the world and significant % of USA that is rich (enough to have rich people problems). ~15% are below poverty line. Not rich people worry if they'll have enough money to buy food. Not rich people can't afford any car, let alone a luxury one.

There is a word for those people: Foolish.

Anyone who ties up 20%+ of their annual income in car payments is, frankly, doomed.

This; I wouldn't tie up 20% of my income in housing (unless I was making significantly less than 50k), much less in a car.

I agree, but I'm not sure why you singled this particular article out. HN is filled with articles discussing issues with iPhones, MacBooks and similar. They're all "rich people problems". In fact, I would consider that a car costing 60k is less of an outlier than a telephone that costs more than 600...

You could suggest that, but I think it's pretty obviously wrong. Waitresses and bartenders and community-college students have smart phones. They don't usually own luxury cars.

That's the genius of Apple: They've managed to make it "normal" for people to buy their luxury goods. People who are savvy enough not to spend 3 times as much on a fancy car or shoes are still persuaded to spend 3 times as much on a fancy phone/computer.

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