[BR3W CITY]

Skip past this post for relevant tuning discussion.

/forum sociology

Thats something you'll find in any thread about build costs, and for a variety of reasons. Satisfaction/value, is a metric completely based on perception.

$20 on the east coast where median incomes are over $60k, is not the same as $20 in Arkansas. But thats a national metric with hard #'s that can actual be calculated.

Where it gets wild is when considering a consumers desire to appear justified. You'll see this on consumer review sites or in-the-moment (sometimes called NPS or Net Promoter Score). This is the idea that when a person spends their hard earned money, they WANT to be satisfied with the product...even if that means glossing over imperfections. When a new product releases (the gaming industry is a great example), there is a built in bias to WANT to love the game because you just spent $60...I mean, if you wanted the game to suck, why waste the money? This is often while you'll see reviews for new products trend downward as time passes, faults are found, and consumers disconnect from the product (along with the money they spent on it). Entire businesses are built on making items cheap enough, that even if they SUCK, they will have made their money on volume BEFORE faults are found and reviews are viewable.

Now, the cost-downscaling that some people do is a separate, yet related, concept. The source is similar (justification/vindication), but also includes a level of subconscious ego. That being the desire to highlight a desired trait; connections, thriftiness, cunning, luck. Saying you got a vendor hookup or "have a guy" (and I'm 20000% guilty of this) is a social posture. NOT saying you have a hookup if you do, is also a social posture, but one meant to downplay the advantages that person has, in favor of the image that it was their efforts alone. (this is what you call the Daddy's Money effect in builds).

This stuff all exists in most of our social interactions in life. Forums are just a fun microcosm which we can easily voyeur.

/forum sociology