[ahel]

Hey, I completely agree and I also suffer from this same bias: it's ruining me from enjoying stuff that I would like to buy but in the end I just give up because it feels that any profit is a scam. What kind of resource can I study for me to understand and accept other people making profits?

[robocat]

> it feels that any profit is a scam

It is so weird we talk about caring about an invisible variable that is actually irrelevant.

In theory we should only look at the price and judge whether our expected benefits are likely to exceed that price. And we get distracted by measuring things in $, when what really matters is our benefits which can't be measured in $.

We are also distracted by ideals of fairness (a foolish goal in a business transaction) and zero-sum thinking (am I getting ripped off?)

I don't mind spending money on quality. What I hate is the information gap, and the costs of having to learn how to judge quality myself (because price is no proxy measure). I am distrustful of so many biased signals, plus so many other people's opinions are either unhelpful or influenced.

Mostly we each just fall back on an A versus B heuristic. I find it absolutely mad that the world works at all.

And an answer: look at the bad buying decisions made by others, and learn from their mistakes. I watch my father with money to spare, he wastes 2 hours to save $1, or he avoids spending money on something that would benefit his life or the life of someone he cares for, or he won't buy a Toyota because he hated their adverts once, or he keeps buying a Nissan even after being burnt by a severe costly design flaw.

[GlacierFox]

What do you mean? Excessive profit or _any_ profit? Haha. You'd prefer it people made things and just broke even?

[ahel]

I think I would like to be able to answer the following two questions:

1. what percentage of this object price is net profit? 2. is that percentage a "fair" proportion?

but atm, I don't have a "scientific" way to respond to those questions so I usually go with my gut, or do whatever other people in my circle do (which is not ideal and I'd like to change)