- Joined
- Apr 26, 2007
- Messages
- 8,087
You know how sometimes two things you see can synthesize? For me, it was a brilliant observation by Haven in a recent thread (can't remember which one or I would link - was it Wink's "Mad About Paper?") about how for Americans, it seems like getting a "deal" was more important than anything else, be it getting a "quality" piece, or even necessarily knowing what you were getting: when you compare this to the "quantity vs. quality" debate that you see over and over and over again, it explains a lot about the current trends, since it's pretty unusual to get a deal on a benchmark piece ... my own feeling about colorless stones aside, you don't see a lot of firesale prices on D IF stones.
And in other news, on Feministe (feminist blog), there was a recent thread about the soda ban where somebody patiently explained that it wasn't necessarily that people even WANTED 32 ounces of soda at a time: it's just that if you are charging almost as much for 16 ounces, most consumers will feel like it's a no-brainer to get more bang for their buck ... even when the "bang" in question is actually a big sugary unhealthy thing that you should be having less and not more of.
Hmmmmmmmm.
In the space between those two observations, I feel like there's a significant point being made about latter-day social values.
I know this applies to me to a certain extent: originally when I got my anniversary ring, I'd been angling for maybe a two carat stone. When I found a two and a half, I JUMPED. And happily, it fit the bill in terms of everything else I'd been looking for ... but frankly, I know me, and if instead of being a high-clarity, low-color transitional cut round with fluorescence it had been a blue-white marquise, or a golden-glowing cushion, or what-have-you, if it was a) enough of a deal, and, b) big enough, I would have been tempted. It's those two qualities, value and size, with size being non-negotiable, that mattered most to me.
Now, for me, "value" equals quality ... the things I leave out of the equation are condition (I will take a battered to hell piece of vintage Buccellati over a brand new shiny chain-store thing) with a certain flexibility concerning actual preference. You know Mrs. Salvo's thing about how a deal is only a deal if you're getting exactly what you want? Well ... I want a lot of things. So I'm like the anti-Mrs. Salvo - deals come and deals go, but it's worth paying full price if I'm feeling really persnickity ... which is, I suppose, what Mrs. S has been saying all along, with the exception that she actually passes up on the "deals" along the way like a clever minimalist, and I hoard like a crazed magpie.
But - where was I? tangent! - I think for a lot of people, the proportions are even more skewed, and the "deal" outweighs almost anything else ... quality, beauty, desirability ... anything except size, as per soda serving-size and in fact, our general super-size society.
When did quantity become the biggest marker of value? Did it, or am I just sleep-deprived and rambling? TALK TO ME, peoples!
And in other news, on Feministe (feminist blog), there was a recent thread about the soda ban where somebody patiently explained that it wasn't necessarily that people even WANTED 32 ounces of soda at a time: it's just that if you are charging almost as much for 16 ounces, most consumers will feel like it's a no-brainer to get more bang for their buck ... even when the "bang" in question is actually a big sugary unhealthy thing that you should be having less and not more of.
Hmmmmmmmm.
In the space between those two observations, I feel like there's a significant point being made about latter-day social values.
I know this applies to me to a certain extent: originally when I got my anniversary ring, I'd been angling for maybe a two carat stone. When I found a two and a half, I JUMPED. And happily, it fit the bill in terms of everything else I'd been looking for ... but frankly, I know me, and if instead of being a high-clarity, low-color transitional cut round with fluorescence it had been a blue-white marquise, or a golden-glowing cushion, or what-have-you, if it was a) enough of a deal, and, b) big enough, I would have been tempted. It's those two qualities, value and size, with size being non-negotiable, that mattered most to me.
Now, for me, "value" equals quality ... the things I leave out of the equation are condition (I will take a battered to hell piece of vintage Buccellati over a brand new shiny chain-store thing) with a certain flexibility concerning actual preference. You know Mrs. Salvo's thing about how a deal is only a deal if you're getting exactly what you want? Well ... I want a lot of things. So I'm like the anti-Mrs. Salvo - deals come and deals go, but it's worth paying full price if I'm feeling really persnickity ... which is, I suppose, what Mrs. S has been saying all along, with the exception that she actually passes up on the "deals" along the way like a clever minimalist, and I hoard like a crazed magpie.
But - where was I? tangent! - I think for a lot of people, the proportions are even more skewed, and the "deal" outweighs almost anything else ... quality, beauty, desirability ... anything except size, as per soda serving-size and in fact, our general super-size society.
When did quantity become the biggest marker of value? Did it, or am I just sleep-deprived and rambling? TALK TO ME, peoples!