Why Are People So Concerned About How Others Spend Their Money?

@sns ,

"Money is often conflated as measure of happiness and worth. Money is how we keep score and value other's purchases, this is perhaps the one objective critique we have available to us."

Money is perhaps the easiest to understand yardstick we have by which to measure performance.

Unfortunately, although there is no doubt a loose correlation with between price and performance, it's not always an accurate one.

Even more unfortunately, all of the other yardsticks necessarily require considerably more thought and time.

Scanning technical data and deciphering complicated graphs which bring back unpleasant memories of high school mathematics is certainly not for everyone.

As we have seen over the past 18 months, there's an awful lot of people don't like to think. Research, for some is almost a dirty word.

So, as things stand, we should not be surprised to find that money/price remains the most commonly used yardstick for some time to come.

No doubt one that many purveyor of dubious goods will continue to seek to exploit.

That alone is a good enough reason for debate to flourish in forums such as this one.

To me, Money is a terrible measure of happiness and worth. There are unlimited extreme examples of terrible rich people and great poor people and vice versa.

As for the OP, I do believe it is envy and the current Borg mentality among some.

Example: Say the neighbor has a much better house.

Some people would work very hard to have just as good of a house. 
 

On the other hand, some other people would rather burn the neighbor’s house.

In all fairness, I should add a third group of people to this example: those who don’t give a crap on neighbor’s house, and are more than happy with their own house. Obviously, this is perfectly fine.

Hi @onhwy61

I clearly see your point with the home/real estate analogy. Homes are in most cases bought for shelter and certainly to some extent as an appreciating investment asset over the course of time. In your example, yes one is definitely a wiser purchase than the other.

High End audio (At least for me) is more in the realm of a pleasure purchase rather than a need/necessity of a home (We all have to live and survive somewhere). It seems that audio is more guided by emotion and desire to enhance one’s connection to the joy of listening to music. I think this is in some ways more complex as it incorporates personal factors that determine satisfaction and happiness.

So for example someone with ample disposable income wants to buy a Robert Koda Takumi preamplifier. Someone else vehemently objects and says a Don Sachs preamplifier is excellent, far cheaper and just makes far more sense. The Koda  Takumi is a waste of money and foolish decision and you’re a gullible idiot (I’ve seen comments to this effect on this forum).

A person is berated by a stranger very critical and disapproving of how disposable income is spent (That is not his by the way). Absolutely none of their business and just plain wrong in my opinion. Different from the house buying scenario you submitted.

Charles