Comments on: Subsidize Experiences

By: lemmy caution

lemmy caution — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:18:01 +0000

That is a good talk. I had read his book, but he is a good speaker.

By: The gold digger

The gold digger — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:49:50 +0000

Experiences are way better than things because you can brag about them more. The rarer the experience, the higher the degree of difficulty, the less money you spend, the weirder the food, the better the brag.

Anyone with $1,000 can get a fancy TV (or however much it costs), but a trip into the Atlas mountains in Morocco with a Peace Corps volunteer to a little village to talk to the locals who speak only Berber? Backpacking alone across South America, taking trains and buses with the Aymara and Maya, not encountering a flush toilet for a week? Ha. Top that, person who takes a package tour to Cozumel!

By: Weds. morning links - Maggie's Farm

Weds. morning links - Maggie's Farm — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:50:38 +0000

[...] are more rewarding than material objects. But isn't shopping an [...]

By: Unnamed

Unnamed — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:28:13 +0000

They have also written a follow-up paper on the status/signaling implications of material and experiential purchases, pdf.

By: Robert Wiblin

Robert Wiblin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:23:41 +0000

The negative externality is significantly internalised by the fact that by buying objects now they not only increase the standards for everyone around them but also for their future selves.

By: AP

AP — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:23:21 +0000

Constant,

While I would be inclined to agree with you re: books being both a thing and an experience, could that not for the sake of argument be the case with almost anything? A new TV is both a thing (having the TV and the associated status signal) but also an experience (watching things on the new TV is higher definition/better than on the old TV).

If we decide that the book and the TV are different cases, where do we draw the line? What about a music CD? Or a cup of coffee? Are these things material possessions or experiences, or both? It seems to me that things e.g. holidays that are fairly easy to categorise are the exception; it seems to me that almost any possession could reasonably be argued to be an experience as well.

By: Ben Albahari

Ben Albahari — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:30:58 +0000

There’s a Ted talk I saw by Dan Gilbert, where he divides happiness into the synthetic vs. the natural, as a model to help explain our satisfaction (and lack thereof). Being dissatisfied with material possessions because of our tendency to compare what we could have had fits well with what Dan says and Gilovich and Boven says. Here’s the link to the Ted Talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

By: Constant

Constant — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:20:23 +0000

When I buy a book, I am buying both a thing (a book) and an experience (reading the book). Lately I’ve been buying purely Kindle books, because I am primarily interested in reading the books, and only secondarily interested in keeping them (though not entirely uninterested in keeping them for reference – though the searchability of electronic texts makes them far superior to physical books as references).

By: Greg Conen

Greg Conen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:01:41 +0000

So the reason I have less fun on vacation than people I know is that I’m more inclined to draw “invidious comparisons”: I tend to think about other things I could be doing rather than just enjoying it.

By: Captain Oblivious

Captain Oblivious — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:27:08 +0000

I tend to prefer “experiential” purchases simply because they leave memories, not piles of crap laying around the house!

I’ve got more “stuff” than I know what to do with – and I collect more all the time. It’s passed a tipping point, because I often go out and buy another of something I know for a fact I’ve already got, simply because I can’t find it amongst all the other junk!

So at least experiential purchases don’t add to the clutter.