I massively disagree re the business class point. In particular, many people (e.g. me) can sleep in business class seats that let you lie flat, when they would have not slept and been quite sad and unproductive.
not worth the 2x or 3x ticket price
As a general point, the ratio between prices is irrelevant to the purchasing choice if you’re only buying something once—you only care about the difference in price and the difference in value.
you only care about the difference in price and the difference in value
Agree with this as a general principle, provided the “difference in value” also takes into account longer-term effects like movement reputational cost.
I don’t think individuals choosing to fly business class based on productivity calculations has much, if any, movement reputational cost. On the other hand, a prominent EA figure might accurately calculate that they gain one extra productive work hour each week, valued at say $100, by paying someone $50 to brush and floss their teeth for them while they sit there working.
This is obviously a fanciful scenario, but I think there are lots of murky areas between flying business class and having a personal teeth brusher where the all-things-considered value calculation isn’t trivial. This is especially the case for purchasing decisions that can’t easily be converted to work productivity boosts, e.g. buying expensive luxury items for the pleasure they bring.
I massively disagree re the business class point. In particular, many people (e.g. me) can sleep in business class seats that let you lie flat, when they would have not slept and been quite sad and unproductive.
As a general point, the ratio between prices is irrelevant to the purchasing choice if you’re only buying something once—you only care about the difference in price and the difference in value.
Agree with this as a general principle, provided the “difference in value” also takes into account longer-term effects like movement reputational cost.
I don’t think individuals choosing to fly business class based on productivity calculations has much, if any, movement reputational cost. On the other hand, a prominent EA figure might accurately calculate that they gain one extra productive work hour each week, valued at say $100, by paying someone $50 to brush and floss their teeth for them while they sit there working.
This is obviously a fanciful scenario, but I think there are lots of murky areas between flying business class and having a personal teeth brusher where the all-things-considered value calculation isn’t trivial. This is especially the case for purchasing decisions that can’t easily be converted to work productivity boosts, e.g. buying expensive luxury items for the pleasure they bring.