There was a time, not that long ago, when electronic stores emphasized the importance of quality cables. Not cheap. But how could you be a true music lover and get the highest sound fidelity unless you paid handsomely for the premium cables lovingly coated in zinc oxide by autistic elves during sacred holidays?
I’m wondering what the more modern version of this puffery is. Maybe it used to be the new Ithing Air, thinner than the basic Ithing. But now I’m thinking headphones. It may be true I am a Luddite who refuses to buy DrBeats for $200 and is unconvinced he is missing anything. Sure, some people describe them as “life changing”. Maybe these people can hear talking trees and need the extra frequency. I don’t notice much difference.
What do you think is the most modern, similar example to fancy cables?
Watches have always been a “Look at meeee, I’m so cool and/or rich!” conspicuous consumption item.
And it’s even sadder when Mr. Limited Edition Chronograph can’t just wear it like a normal watch, which is under a shirt sleeve and usually a suitcoat sleeve, but they have to perform little gymnastic moves so that the sleeve rides up and the watch can be noticed*.
*Heh, I almost said “admired”, but, while I’ve met soulless executives with expensive watches, I’ve never met anyone who really cares what watch other people wear.
Regarding headphones, a few years ago I spent a few hours in a Sony store (over 3 days) in Las Vegas listening to every headphone that had. I ultimately bought a mid level set that sounded the best to me, I think it was around $100. That said, there certainly was a difference between all of the headphones I listened to. So while I liked a mid level set, it wasn’t like the sound was imperceptible from the top dollar set. There certainly was a difference, so it’s not exactly like cables, where the difference in sound, if any, is quite small. Headphones may be overpriced, but they sound quite different from each other.
High-end, $800+ smartphones. I think we will all agree that you pay an extra just for the print of an apple on your phone, and it’s rather the same for top models of other brands like Samsung. I’ve never had a smartphone that cost more than € 170, and they all did everything one needed from a phone and were good for 2-3 years, when it was time to get a new one, mostly because apps became so bloated that I ran out of memory, but that’s just a normal cycle. The few advantages a high-end smartphone offers are definitely not worth the 400-500% cost compared to a fully functional basic phone.
Excuse me while I adjust my spats, but I must point out that whatever “contemporary usage” may be, “Luddites” destroyed new machinery because employers deployed it to reduce the number of workers needed in the textile mills. Those workers were at the cutting edge of the “Industrial Revolution” and understood and used the most modern technology of the day. It wasn’t technology they opposed, it was unemployment. Also, fun fact, the British army had more troops combatting Luddites than it did fighting Napoleon in Spain.
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