this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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New Refrigerators, Washing Machines, Furniture and Tires Will All Have to Last Longer, Europe Mandates (www.scientificamerican.com)
submitted 2 days ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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[โ€“] barsoap@lemm.ee 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Obligatory Pratchett:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

[โ€“] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

I've carried that with me for years. I always try to buy long-lasting quality items for this very reason.

Not to mention that, due to inflation, those ten dollar boots themselves will cost 20 to 30 dollars before long.