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Comment by rmxt | Hacker News Reader

Warhol's right, of course, but the bum on the corner is buying the Coke at a much higher relative opportunity cost. The nickel spent on the Coke, was a nickel not spent on "x" other thing that results in personal improvement (housing, clothing, education, etc.). Make what you will of the analogy to implicitly disposable electronics and ~90% of the American population today.

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It's somewhat more complex than that. Mexican Coke is slightly different vs canned coke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Coke. Also, restaurants have a fair amount of latitude when it comes to soda machines.

So, the bum might be drinking the same thing as a billionaire or a slightly different version. IMO, what's more interesting is that where wine, beer and even water have a fairly stratified market soda is just store brand vs name brand.

There are actually a lot of smaller companies making craft sodas that are of a superior quality to the mainstream brands. They typically use cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, and come in a wider variety of flavors. Plain cola gets boring fast. I much prefer cream sodas and birch or root beers. Here are some examples:

http://maineroot.com/ (uses fair trade organic sugar) https://www.boylanbottling.com/ http://reedsinc.com/

Personally, I never drink Coke, Pepsi or Dr Pepper products any more. A large part of the cost of those products is relentless marketing, shareholder dividends, and large corporate salaries. They no longer seem to care about delivering a quality product. How can they sell something called ginger ale if it doesn't actually have any ginger? For variety and depth of flavor any money I spend on soda is spent on craft soda.

Just to bring the analogy back to tech... when, if ever, do you think you'll feel the same way about Apple/Google/Microsoft/etc. regarding "relentless market, shareholder dividends, and large corporate salaries"? How do we get the equivalent of "variety and depth of flavor" when products and services converge towards mediocrity (or disregard for end user privacy, or any other complaint du jour)? (Note: I do not know if any or all of the corporate cruft complaints apply to the tech companies mentioned.)

I agree with you, in that spending money on quality products is "voting with your wallet," and overall, a good idea.

I already do feel that way regarding technology (and consumerism in general). I think that by supporting FOSS such as Linux and the Mozilla backed projects you can vote for variety and innovation with both your time and money. I will happily switch from an iPhone to a Firefox OS based phone once a high end model is available.

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

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