ava's blog

things cost more than their price tag

There's this story I like to tell sometimes.

When I was still living with my ex, her parents installed a special granite sink in the kitchen. It was white. It looked very impressive and was high quality, similar to the bathroom granite sink they had in the parents' house, which was gray. That little sink needed special care, nothing was to be dropped in it to not cause damage in the granite, and you needed to be careful with soap as to not erode the stone. You're probably thinking already: "Wow, great to use such a material for a bathroom sink then." And I fully agree with you. They had to instruct every visitor before using that sink. But they didn't learn from that, so a white granite sink it had to be for our kitchen, where you would wash dishes and pans with detergent and deal with discolored water.

Inevitably, the normal use of the sink caused it to stain and have residue in the rough surface, especially due to tea, as was obvious to anyone who thought for more than 2 seconds about it. To clean it, you needed special detergent by the manufacturer. Tell me why it was a hot topic in that house that we were using so much expensive detergent for that sink? That is what you signed up for buying that sink. That is the whole strategy of that manufacturer to make extra money. If a sink is doing a bad job of enduring sink uses, it's a shitty sink, no matter how good it looks or how expensive it is.

The point is, they were willing to pay the price on the price tag, they were even partially willing to contort and change their own behavior around that sink while using it, but they were unwilling to invest everything it takes into the upkeep.

It's so easy to be impressed by objects nowadays - the haul videos, the YouTube reviews, the staged promotion materials, the photoshopped catalogue images and AI generated listing pictures. They basically never show the thing used realistically. They don't show it dirty, they don't show how that material attracts dust and hair like crazy, how you can see fingerprints all over after a few uses, how the chrome finish will stain, or how easy it is to scratch a thing. The items just exist in their pure, aesthetic bliss. For the sink, I imagine the marketing material shows it in a white-gray minimalist unused kitchen in all its virgin glory. Showing crusty dishes in dirty water would remind you of the consequences, or remind you that you aren't the target group - people who never use the sink for dishes probably are.

More and more, it seems to me like many items are not manufactured for genuine use, but to show off. The sink that sucks as a sink, but looks good for the guests. Shoes whose soles immediately break and crease after two times of wearing because they're meant to be worn for Instagram, not used for walking. Intricate tops that look good posed for the camera, but constantly shift and fall down and look weird when you wear them out and about, bend down, walk. Lots of fashion you cannot realistically wear out, actually - a consequence of staying home more, perhaps? Outfits you only wear on the bed, on the sofa, at the desk for your own enjoyment, for the TikTok. They don't last for more.

And it seems like we aren't always ready for the true cost.

If you buy that, can you really spare time and money for the upkeep? You might need to buy replacement parts down the line - can you? Can you afford the expensive cleaner, oil, wax, coating or whatever? Can you afford the repair fee? Do you have the skills and energy to repair it yourself, or is there a repair center nearby? What if there is none?

If you buy that, you might need to change how you operate. Is it worth the adjustment? Is it worth it to slow you down, add one more chore to the list, one more thing to remember? To use the sink as an example once more, do you really want the burden of having to be extra careful, cleaning it more often, instructing other people on how to treat it? It costs you energy and time, in a life that may already be full and stressful, or is going against your plans to slow down and spend your time more wisely.

If you buy that, are you ready for the cost of it being in your space? I'm dead serious. Our item might be easier to return, sell or otherwise get rid of when it is truly broken, doesn't fit and is something you dislike, but it's harder if it's just meh, still useful or still functional, so you'll likely keep it for way longer than you want to. That's most of the items people usually keep around.

You'll stand in front of a full shelf or drawer, and you want to organize it and discard some items to prioritize what you really need and like, but end up not making any progress because everything is "kind of useful" and "why not keep it if it still works" and "it's just one item, what's the harm". But just one item is suddenly a lot of items, still taking up space, and you don't know where to put the thing that right now means a lot to you.

There's obviously real cost associated with space - we cannot keep outrunning our real life item limits by buying bigger and bigger houses and entertaining storage units on the side. This is unsustainable both for you financially, and for most of humanity to do. As people can afford less and less apartments and houses, the affordable ones get tinier and more people stay (or are forced back) in their childhood rooms back home, the cost of items using up space is increasing. There is a hard limit for many of us. Space is also costly when moving - the more furniture, items, boxes, the more expensive the moving is and and more helping hands are needed. Is the item worth that additional cost?

If you buy that, are you ready for the costs associated with parting ways with it? It's easy to buy, harder to keep, and even harder to get rid of. It may be of a hobby you tried but gave up on, or grew out of - and discarding it may be the final nail in the coffin for that, a real acknowledgement that this is over. That's harder than it sounds. Depending on what it is, it is acknowledging that we'll never be that person we envisioned when we bought that. It's letting go of goals and dreams, an alternate universe where we made it work.

You should consider the ease of moving on from it when you buy it. The hidden costs like needing to make accounts somewhere to sell it, making time for the posts and taking pictures, arguing and haggling with people (especially rude people), finding a buyer, having to send the stuff. Or researching how to correctly throw it away - which bin, or where to bring it to, or to schedule a pickup. Then there's more of a longterm cost that will not affect you now, but is affecting all of us in the future; the cost of it being in some landfill, burned, or recycled. The waste created, the microplastics seeping into the ground, toxic fumes and liquids, the CO2, whatever.

If you buy that, are you ready for the cost of being transformed, of losing it again? Nothing is forever. It can break, you can lose it, it can get stolen, or a successor never comes. On the other hand, there is also lifestyle creep - upgrading and upgrading the more we earn, and getting used to a certain luxury. Can you deal with what it does to your standards and your wallet?

If you buy that, are you willing to support the cause? This one needs a bit of nuance, because there are simply purchases of basic goods to fulfill needs and not everyone has the access and choice to do better. But extra purchases of things we want but don't need, and that are kind of frivolous might benefit from further scrutiny. Sure, if you cannot afford otherwise and need it, buy socks from Shein, but do your optional purchases need to be from questionable sources? Is it something you might regret later? Do you like to be associated with the brand/item criticism?

Consider how a view of a brand might shift drastically, and now you have to walk or drive around with their label slapped on to you (just look at regretful Tesla drivers). You can simply be unlucky and no one could have foreseen this; but in some cases, you can acknowledge it is a risky, unnecessary purchase that is against your values or plans and isn't something you're proud of or want to represent. If you buy it anyway, it costs you something about how you view yourself (a liar? a fraud? a hypocrite?), and it might cost you integrity and reputation among others. What does a purchase tell about you?

In haul culture where extreme consumption is celebrated and nornalized, it's harder to recognize all this. It can be easier to simply have not bought an item than to deal with the upkeep, space, transport, sale and disposal of it. I try to keep all this in mind whenever I make a purchase.

Published 05 Jan, 2025

#2025 #misc