On Sun, 9 Jul 2017 09:52:00 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Just because a tire meats the minimum specifications does not mean it is
the best tool for the job. Some conditions require more.

What you're saying is true but what you're also saying is, essentially,
nothing.

It's like me saying that just because an alignment meets minimum
specifications does not mean it's the best alignment for the job.

There's no substance, no meat in those rhetorical sentences.
They're both just rhetoric.

Nothing wrong with rhetoric. But there's no meaningful information in it
that wasn't already agreed upon before the two sentences were uttered.

My wife's car can happily exist on $100 tires.
I realize you think that tires can be measured by dollars, but I must
respectfully disagree.

I'm sure I'm not the only person with marketing degrees here where the
express purpose of the millions of dollars spent on marketing every month
is to make people make exactly the kinds of decisions you seem to be
making.

Hence, I can't fault you for making your buying decisions based on price
but I can only suggest that you use logical reasoning in that we both know
that I can find, for any spec you want to ask about, different tires that
meet that spec at a different price for each tire, all of which meet the
spec.

Price is meaningless in terms of specs. Facts are everything.

The great thing about marketing is that very few people understand anything
I said above, so they fall for every marketing trick in the book. And
that's great because it makes them waste lots of money.

I had one professor who devoted an entire lecture to outlining how a
typical consumer wastes more than half her disposable income because she is
unduly influenced by marketing alone.

She rarely goes on the
highway, never drives in snow, rarely goes more than a few miles at a
time.

Why not get her a less expensive set of tires which are far better than the
ones she has now and then use the remaining disposable income to buy her
flowers?

She gets better tires, and flowers!

OTOH, I drive some weeks 2000 miles. speeds sometimes in triple
digits, on hills in the snow, on highways in the heat. Do you think the
$100 tire is going to perform as well as a Nokian WR3G? It is about
double the price but can keep you safer in severe condition.

I'm never going to be able to give you a degree in economic theory, nor in
marketing, nor even in logic.

If you actually think that price is a reliable indicator of quality, then
I'm never going to change your mind. Never. It's actually great (for
marketing people) that you think that way because you are so easily
manipulated.

For example, do you ever wonder why the Google Pixel was priced *exactly*
the same as the iPhone it wanted to compete with? Think about the beauty in
that very simple marketing decision, and then contrast that with Google's
previous price strategy.

A favorite expression of one of my professors was:
* Marketing is genius.
* People who fall for it are not.

I don't buy on price and minimum specs, I buy on the performance that I
need.

I buy on value.
All I use is logic and effort.

To buy on price only takes the absolute minimum of logic but no effort.
To buy on value takes far more logic and far more effort.

Take this simple logic, for example:
* You can buy Craftsman screwdrivers individually, or,
* You can buy a whole set of them for a lower unit price.

The price per screwdriver could be twice as much for the individual
screwdriver than for the set. Assuming you need a set (which is a decent
assumption, and adjusting the unit price to remove the couple of crapware
items they include in the numbers), you can easily have a unit cost for the
set to be about half the unit cost individually.

This is called economies of scale (not scope - which was my bad).

At twice the cost per screwdriver, how is buying screwdrivers individually
going to get you a better screwdriver than buying them as a set?

HINT: Commodities are different than specialty items.

A cheap screwdriver can drive the occasional screw, but if you do it
often you'll find the more expensive ones fit your hand better and thus
work better. Meantime, enjoy your hamburger. I'm having a steak.

I only buy Craftsman screwdrivers. The ones with the red and blue colors on
the clear plastic handle and with that little ball on top. That's because I
found they seem to work the best for me and I can replace them if I abuse
them (because they're not going to wear out unless I abuse them).

I don't buy the yellow and black handled screwdrivers you see everywhere,
and I don't buy SnapOn screwdrivers either.

I buy Craftsman quality, and the round-top quality inside of Craftsman.
And I buy them, on sale, and as a set (if I need a set that is).

I also give them as gifts to kids who buy their first car (I actually give
them an entire toolbag which I assemble separately for them to put in the
trunk).

Since we are talking about screwdrivers, they periodically go on sale
(Father's day is a good one to aim for), and I can schedule gifts easily.

Why do you insist that if I pay double for the screwdriver, I get a better
screwdriver than if I pay half?

Your argument makes no logical sense to me.

Maybe it makes sense to you and to others to pay twice as much for the same
thing, thinking it's "better" somehow, just because you paid twice as much
for it?