Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense

In general, people are impressed by any visible extra effort that goes into a product:

‘The term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. […] Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. Plates are for pushing.

we generally find it easier to buy things that serve a single purpose.

Complementary talent is far more valuable than conformist talent.

the problem is that when ‘the rules are the same for everyone’ the same boring bastards win every time.

However, what they have never asked, is whether people like efficiency as much as economic theory believes they do.

If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them.

As a result, like any social species, we need to engage in ostensibly ‘nonsensical’ behaviour if we wish to reliably convey meaning to other members of our species.

We don’t value things; we value their meaning.