There have always been items which are a cut above. Whether it is clothing or housewares, automobiles or furniture, there is a basic model and a more upscale version. After all, if you need to sit on something, a chair is a chair. There's a seat and some legs, maybe a back and arms, sometimes padding, sometimes not. If all you want to do is not stand, the material used makes no difference: wood works as well as metal, cloth as well as fur. As to the specifics of those component parts, how they look and how they are assembled, well, as my mother was fond of saying, that's what makes for horse races.
That continuum is a long road, and easily followed. If you had watches from Target and Tiffany, you would have no problem telling which were commodities and which were luxuries. Those with plastic bands and bodies, sporting brand names like Casio and G Shock and Timex, would fall squarely in the former category. Meanwhile, the ones sporting the Tiffany name with fine leather bands and encrusted with jewels and precious metals are lodged firmly in the latter group. The prices back that up: 20 or 30 dollars for the first, a hundred or even a thousand times that for the second.
But it's not always that simple. With the cost of manufacturing and distribution falling so sharply, it can be hard these days to distinguish between the two. Items which, by their very nature used to be firmly in one camp or the other, have slid back and forth across the divide. A cell phone used to be a luxury affordable by only a select few. Now you can get one online or at the drug store, and many replace them once a year for the newest model. On the other side of the ledger that same Tiffany is selling LEGO-style bricks made of walnut and silver. A set of 10 costs $1650, hardly enough to make a model of Millennium Falcon.
A perfect example of this mobility is both directions is LED lamps. When they first came out, this technological innovation promised brighter lights that lasted forever and used minimal electricity. High end cars sported LED headlights, designer showrooms changed to LED spotlights and luxury apartment buildings changed to LED sconces. Fast forward a few years, and you now can get LED flashlights, LED Christmas tree lights and LED bike headlights that are priced as cheap as traditional fixtures if not less.
But having raced downward it's time to bounce off the bottom and see how high we can go. At the one end I can stop by Ikea and pickup an LED desk lamp for $14.99. With a focusable and dimmable bulb, a gooseneck support and a weighted base, it provides the perfect light for doing my books. With a typical life expectancy of 25,000 hours, even if I have it on 3 hours a day, I'll be retired before it burns out in 20 years and needs replacement.
Meanwhile, looking skyward, there is the Dyson Lightcycle Task Light. It too provides LED illumination, an adjustable support and a weighted base, all the same components as my Ikea purchase. But Dyson applied the same thought that they did to vacuums and hand dryers to create a lamp unlike any other. The support structure is made of beams and tiny rollers, somewhat akin to a cantilever crane used in constructing buildings. A tiny push with your finger raises, lowers and extends the boom over your papers. As to the light itself, that is controlled by more than just a switch. Using the companion Bluetooth app, you first plug in your age and current mental mode (Precision, Study or Relax). The lamp checks the local time of day to account for natural light, and pumps out the perfect lumens and color temperature to minimize eye fatigue. All that overengineering will set you back $600.
You can buy Channel tennis balls, a Coach baseball glove or a Prada paper clip. Will they make it more likely you will hit an ace, catch a foul or not lose your papers? Probably not. But if you have money to burn, go ahead and purchase them. Or better yet, give it to me, and I will send you two cans of Wilsons. We'll both make out.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford generally buys mass market stuff. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
That continuum is a long road, and easily followed. If you had watches from Target and Tiffany, you would have no problem telling which were commodities and which were luxuries. Those with plastic bands and bodies, sporting brand names like Casio and G Shock and Timex, would fall squarely in the former category. Meanwhile, the ones sporting the Tiffany name with fine leather bands and encrusted with jewels and precious metals are lodged firmly in the latter group. The prices back that up: 20 or 30 dollars for the first, a hundred or even a thousand times that for the second.
But it's not always that simple. With the cost of manufacturing and distribution falling so sharply, it can be hard these days to distinguish between the two. Items which, by their very nature used to be firmly in one camp or the other, have slid back and forth across the divide. A cell phone used to be a luxury affordable by only a select few. Now you can get one online or at the drug store, and many replace them once a year for the newest model. On the other side of the ledger that same Tiffany is selling LEGO-style bricks made of walnut and silver. A set of 10 costs $1650, hardly enough to make a model of Millennium Falcon.
A perfect example of this mobility is both directions is LED lamps. When they first came out, this technological innovation promised brighter lights that lasted forever and used minimal electricity. High end cars sported LED headlights, designer showrooms changed to LED spotlights and luxury apartment buildings changed to LED sconces. Fast forward a few years, and you now can get LED flashlights, LED Christmas tree lights and LED bike headlights that are priced as cheap as traditional fixtures if not less.
But having raced downward it's time to bounce off the bottom and see how high we can go. At the one end I can stop by Ikea and pickup an LED desk lamp for $14.99. With a focusable and dimmable bulb, a gooseneck support and a weighted base, it provides the perfect light for doing my books. With a typical life expectancy of 25,000 hours, even if I have it on 3 hours a day, I'll be retired before it burns out in 20 years and needs replacement.
Meanwhile, looking skyward, there is the Dyson Lightcycle Task Light. It too provides LED illumination, an adjustable support and a weighted base, all the same components as my Ikea purchase. But Dyson applied the same thought that they did to vacuums and hand dryers to create a lamp unlike any other. The support structure is made of beams and tiny rollers, somewhat akin to a cantilever crane used in constructing buildings. A tiny push with your finger raises, lowers and extends the boom over your papers. As to the light itself, that is controlled by more than just a switch. Using the companion Bluetooth app, you first plug in your age and current mental mode (Precision, Study or Relax). The lamp checks the local time of day to account for natural light, and pumps out the perfect lumens and color temperature to minimize eye fatigue. All that overengineering will set you back $600.
You can buy Channel tennis balls, a Coach baseball glove or a Prada paper clip. Will they make it more likely you will hit an ace, catch a foul or not lose your papers? Probably not. But if you have money to burn, go ahead and purchase them. Or better yet, give it to me, and I will send you two cans of Wilsons. We'll both make out.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford generally buys mass market stuff. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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