This post yesterday got me thinking: consumers typically don't buy things based on quality; they would rather shop by numbers.

I used to work at Circuit City (back when we used to have those), and I can't tell you the number of customers I had who would buy TVs by looking at the tags without ever looking at the sets themselves. Manufacturers have figured out that if they post numbers like "contrast ratios" (which are largely made up because there are several different ways to measure them and fudge the numbers), consumers will buy a crappy set just because it has better numbers, or a more expensive set because it has quantifiable advantages that their eyes can't even perceive.

Some manufacturers try to make the mundane sound spectacular, like with the Sony still-cameras that claim to shoot "1080p" images (1920x1080…just over two megapixels, real impressive…) or the 10 megapixel cameras that still take horribly grainy images.

I guess this is obsession with numbers is a kind of a defense mechanism. There are plenty of companies that want to sell us overpriced shit that claim to do a lot of things that they cannot quantify (because they are made up).

But there are still some areas in the middle where the product does have a quality that cannot be simply addressed with numbers. For example, in the Mac vs. PC post listed above, the creator didn't take into account the fact that the Apple Cinema displays have much higher color accuracy than your cheapo $200 LCDs because this is something that is hard to quantify and compare. In general, Apple dances around this line by offering products that can be good in ways that cannot be quantified (unibody macbook pro? I guess I need that...).

I also like to bring up the example of lenses. Pro-mature/Professional camera users have the advantage that the product they buy relies heavily on a non-quantifiable information (like barrel-distortion, chromatic aberration, resistance to dust accumulation), yet has a userbase that is largely skeptical of marketing bullshit.

I purchased a $900 lens last year. Whenever people ask me about it and learn the price, their first response is always "But it doesn't even zoom in very far!" I guess I could have gone with the $250 zoom, but the quality of my images would have suffered.

TLDR

So I was just posing the question, what was the last item or gadget that you purchased for reasons that can't be easily listed on a product sheet? Was it worth it?

Edit Also, why does this post have 74 comments and only 8 points? Do people not like discussion of the ethics of gadget marketing on the gadget subreddit?