> A $35 JanSport that dies in eighteen months: $23 per year. Add the shipping cost when you try the warranty. Add the replacement cost when the claim gets denied. Add your time.

> A $200 bag that lasts ten years: $20 per year. Already cheaper. At fifteen years, which the well-built ones consistently do, you're at $13 per year.

This ignores the money you would earn by not giving money upfront. A 23$ expense every year is cheaper than 200$ upfront over 10 years, because you will earn 15 euros over that 170 Euro first year if you put it in S&P500. And then 12 nect year and and 10 in third year and you are already ahead of the 200 Eurro bag. And you just dont spend time in warranty. Just throw it away dn buy next one for 35 Euros.

Or put another way, we need to compare the net present value.

The more expensive choice now is an investment into not buying future bags, and the future returns on that investment should be discounted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounting

It also ignores the fact that your backpack needs change.

At various points in my life I've needed:

- A huge backpack, then a small one

- Water bottle holders weren't important, then they were

- Straps I could tighten to hold a yoga mat weren't important, then they were

- A laptop slot wasn't important, then it was critical

Plus my preference in color has changed, as well as my aesthetic preferences.

Paying $200 for a backpack would be insane when I'll have different needs in a few years anyways. I buy cheap-ish backpacks, I've never had a zipper or seam fail on me before I needed to buy a new one for a different reason anyways. Or it was just stolen/lost.

My general life philosophy is to buy the cheapest thing that meets my needs generally, replace as necessary (since I often need to replace/upgrade for functional reasons anyways), and buy a very few expensive high-quality items that I know are actually worth it. Like a mid-tier espresso machine, a good leather jacket, quality boots, a decent home speaker, and... I'm honestly struggling to think of anything else.

You need to consider usage patterns as you evaluate the cost/quality value curve, though. $35 for a Jansport for a school kid who will brutalize their pack regardless is probably a much better value than a $130 Osprey that is objectively superior but which a teenager would still brutalize to death in 1-2 years of daily school use.

Fwiw, my elementary kid is on year 3 with her Lands End pack (which is way crappier than the Lands End / Eddie Bauer / LL Bean school packs from the 80s-00s), and my two older kids use Osprey Nebula packs in high school -- both also on year three. The Osprey packs are terrific, but would be overkill for a younger kid, and we purchased them mostly because our kids bike to school and needed something that would comfortable carry 20+ lbs of crap.

Terry Pratchett wrote an excellent metaphor for this concept: https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots...

The bigger issue for me is these business models prey on the poor and overworked. There are a lot of people who can’t buy a $200 backpack because they need that money for food, but they still need a backpack, only have time to grab something at Wal-Mart, and they get stuck in poverty product churn.

It’s like regressive taxation but carried out by capitalists.