• rufus
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    8 months ago

    I think this is the answer. They also need to advertise correctly so people feel the need to finance a $70.000 truck instead of buying a small used car for $4.000. Of course with interest and their credit score people will end up paying like double the price anyways.

    Another option is to offer crappy versions of the same thing that are more affordable but break earlier. That way you also pay more over the years.

    • PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Vimes’ theory of boots!

      The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … 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. … 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 a 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.

      • rufus
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        8 months ago

        Ah, thanks! I knew there was a name for it but couldn’t remember.