Example 1: I play table tennis, though due to being young adolescent and only having played it for the last ~3 years, I’ve never played in a competition for the local club. I live in Europe, by the way. One of the coaches sometimes talks about how my racket’s lack of really sticky rubber surface forces me into a different play style. He does this rarely, and isn’t all negative about it (“No wonder you did better against L. J., you both have this play style where you seldom enact torque on the ball which forces even me to think more about what to do next because I basically always do that, and expect others to do too”, roughly translated), and the last time he actually told me how I might like getting a new racket with different physical properties was like 1.5 years ago. He gave me a catalogue from a regional store, which I probably threw out some time between then and now probably because of how much I Hate buying things in general. I can see how when I progress in being able to control the ball, I can probably give up some control to gain speed, but I wanted to share how dogmatic I appear to be about this.

Example 2: I play osu!, a PC rhythm game where you click circles to the beat, though only since like February. I have a general negative reaction to the fact that most really good players, and also, as it appears due to lack of information, at least some normally skilled players, buy a drawing tablet to use as the aiming input device. Because these tablets have drivers that map one position on the tablet to one position on the screen consistently, unlike mice and the position on the table or trackpads, this is purported to eliminate drift, which is said to become a problem in longer levels. I have added a second keyboard to my setup because using the laptop keyboard didn’t feel ergonomic enough. Even though we had this keyboard lying around and my parents weren’t using it, this feels kind of hypocritical.

One reason to hate things that could be bought is that buying it will lead to an increased production of stuff, which is superficially bad for the environment, and that it will lead to the introduction of stuff into the “cluttered” home. (by the way, is “I have too much stuff (sunk space) therefore I should want to buy less without any other rational basis” fallacious?)

Another reason to hate things that could be bought is that my mom hates buying things for approximately the above reason, unless one is sure the thing is actually beneficial, which is like actually pretty nebulous because even the people who have the Thing sometimes don’t think it is better, and often apparently really don’t want to admit it.

Another reason to hate things that could be bought is that my parents, and especially my dad feel like they’re going to buy you things that you don’t want if you don’t check on them regularly. If we’re feeling particularly rebellious, we could argue this isn’t necessarily their fault, because buying things behind others backs and being ok with having things bought for you is normalized by Presents (for which I totally believe the argument that because no one knows what you want better than you, presents have less perceived value than things bought by oneself. I totally hate this about presents, and we are only slowly accomodating). Related: my family has at least 20 Tabletop games because we just couldn’t stop ourselves buying one at like every Presents festivity.

This stuff also ties into how I hate advertising. Much like with Presents, advertizing is a thing which reduces the ratio of perceived value per unit of currency, not by accidentally diminishing the perceived value, but by trying to make you buy things that have so little perceived value that they need to persuade you to buy them, because you wouldn’t buy them automatically. I think it’s more economical to hate advertising. You might say that advertising is trying to sway you to a competitor in some cases, where this doesn’t apply, though mental math suggests that companies that spend more on advertising can’t use that money to make the prices lower, they have to use the money from the customers they are basically buying with the advertising. Unsure.

Another reason to hate buying things is that in the two contexts described above, I feel like it is spiritually cheating. Yes, everyone* does it, but If you say something is based on skill, and then you find out that for the same skill level you get to win more games if you buy the Thing, this feels like an awkward, though way less pronounced parallel to pay to win video games, which definitely belong in hell at least figuratively. The Patreon Equivalent Support Purchase Argument does not even hold for most Things that can be bought, and it’s one of the few things that I think is actually in favour of ever buying any DLC or microtransactions.

Another reason to hate buying things is that I am too lazy or socially awkward (pick more than 0) to buy things, therefore “The Fox cannot reach the grapes and claims they are sour without evidence, or in this case, tries to surround himself with only evidence that they are sour”. This sounds like something a psychologist would say. Related: I am also too lazy or socially awkward to resell things, though that sounds much easier, maybe I should try that.

If you are somehow allergic to rankings (Jreg says: “the left is antihierarchical, therefore I am the only person capable of making a gender tier list”) you might say that you buy these Things to have more fun using them, because (learning to use|using) them is enjoyable in itself, and because you can buy yourself into social circles by (learning to use|using) them with others because everyone* has them.

Discuss any questionable upgrade gadgets you know so I don’t feel alone. Tell me whether there are any forums in- or outside the fediverse that I should re- or crosspost this or parts of this to. (Politely) state which of my arguments against (and in favour of) buying things you disagree with to give me a peek outside of my brain shaped echo chamber.

Alternate title: I hate buying things. Definitely not a Manifesto