[yomly]

I think those numbers are all relative?

If you're a bored prince with billions of liquid cash and even more billions of yielding assets, do you really care about 10-20k of weekly outlays?

Or reduce the scale, if you have 100k annual salary, do you miss that $3 a day you spend on coffee or $5 a week you spend on mobile gaming? ... or $15.99 a month you spend on Netflix?

Everyone has a thing and a threshold they are comfortable spending on. Some people want 4 wheels that will take them from A to B and other people are willing to spend $500 a month to get a Tesla.

We focus on digital goods because they have a perceived cost of zero to manufacture and are transient (one day the game will no longer work) but fail to spot that the value we heap on many material goods are social and most of us do not buy goods for life (hence why r/BuyItForLife is a subculture rather than conventional wisdom)

[AussieWog93]

Just to follow up on what you said, one of the things I've learned after a couple of years in online retail is that a huge proportion of people genuinely enjoy spending money.

They don't consider the opportunity cost or feel the pain of lost potential, but get a rush of "feeling rich" whenever they spend $50 on a T-shirt they'll wear once.

It's cross-cultural, natural psychology, and I doubt it'll go anywhere.

[Beltalowda]

A lot of people have this; I certainly do: when I buy something new it feels good, for a short time.

I actually live a fairly frugal life, and I think acknowledging this is important: "do I really want or need this or am I just making myself feel better for a few hours?"

[HWR_14]

Some people have enough money that they don't care about the money. But other people become addicted and end up spending money they don't have.

Just like some people dropping 100k in Vegas in a weekend are paying for the experience and VIP treatment and others just need one more bet to replenish Johnnys college fund.

[yomly]

sincere question - how big of a problem (in terms of #people suffering) is there of people spending beyond their means on online cosmetics?

I could see <18s getting into trouble but are there adults legit bankrupting themselves from paid-for cosmetics?

How common is the pattern for paid-for lootbox cosmetics (as compared to buy-it-now) cosmetics? Wouldn't say I'm particularly deep in either the RL/Fortnite ecosystem..!