This is a great thread about wealth and craftsmanship. Wealthy people used to appreciate craft, which has morphed into spending lots of money on a brand rather than an understanding of what it is that they're buying: https://bsky.app/profile/dieworkwear.bsky.social/post/3lswmj...
Excellent thread, nicely juxtaposed to this utterly insane sentence:
> One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
I've noticed this in clothing and vehicles. If you want to own a durable car, you need to get an old one. Mid 1990s seems optimal for most manufacturers, some skew earlier (e.g. Mercedes-Benz which peaked about half a decade earlier). If you want durable shoes, it's very hard to beat a set of custom Limmers which are made pretty much the same way they were in the 1950s. Neither option is cheap, but you get something for it--knowing your car won't strand you with some bewildering array of christmas tree lights on the dashboard, and that your feet will be fine if you have an unplanned 20mi hike.
The actual wealthy people still appreciate craft, at least for certain things. It's mainly the socially insecure nouveau riche who buy brands as a signaling mechanism.
Go and learn about the 1700 century and how people spent all their money on spices because it was trendy with other nobles. Why did they build certain buildings? Because nobles in other places built those buildings.
The idea that people in the past where more sophisticated, and more intelligent is simply not true.
