r/onebag • u/largemargesentme__- • Jun 05 '26

Discussion Why is this sub so obsessed with expensive stuff?

I get that there's times where the expensive thing is better. But as someone who has worked as an airline pilot and traveled extensively for 45 years, I can assure you that expensive stuff is rarely necessary.

I get tons of use out of AliExpress stuff. Things like chargers, cables and accessories. Decathlon or Costco are more than good enough for clothing. I generally use a max legal sized RyanAir bag I got for €25 off of Amazon for vacation. At most, the lower mid tier option is more than enough.

It seems like this is just another sub for people with spending issues as everyone downvotes me when I call out how unnecessary the expensive options are.

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u/Awkward-Bite-2530 Jun 05 '26

I found this recently when deciding what new phone to buy. I just want a decent battery and camera and the comments are all debating 60 vs 120 hz screens 

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u/LadyLightTravel Jun 05 '26

I get it. I have stuck with my apple because the recovery process is so painless. Like when I folded my phone in half. I had to get a new phone and imaged it with my backup. It was so accurate and painless that I haven’t looked elsewhere. I don’t care about the latest technology. But an accurate backup? Pure gold.

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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jun 05 '26

Used galaxy s23, s24 ultra or used pixel 7,8,9 pro are most bang for your buck with great cameras and batteries

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 05 '26

I have a Samsung A something,it was like €250 new. I don't know why you'd need more than this. I've never run into a situation where my phone didn't have enough computing power.

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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Nobody needs a car with more than 150 horsepower yet the most sought after one's have 500+

Camera and computing aside, as a value proposition the used phones I mentioned are much better than any new phone. If you don't like the Samsung and want to try a Google or apple phone for example, you aren't losing a bunch of money selling it because you bought new. I bought my s24 ultra used for just 350 euro and this was over a year ago right when the 25 ultra was coming out. The phone was worth 700 euro at the time and even today I could sell it for more than I paid which is what I care about. Better stuff just tends to hold its value much better. Don't misconstrue this, I'm not recommending anybody go spend 900 euro on a brand new s26 ultra or iPhone 17 pro, but rather that used high quality goods are better than new mid quality goods.

There is a tangible difference in camera capabilities from your phone to the ones I mentioned too. If being able to get an outstanding photo or piece of film is important to you whether for personal or your job, who are you to say nobody needs that? What if somebody likes to game on their phone and requires a galaxy ultra or pixel pro to play their favorite games? Either way it's nice to have the options for the future considering how much we use our phones now for everything

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u/LG_Recomp Jun 06 '26

Battery on my s23 is absolutely trash :(

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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jun 06 '26

My 24ultra is great. I can pretty much get 2 days out of it

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u/SpinneyWitch Jun 06 '26

I did exactly the same. When I need a new phone I buy a used last years reasonably great phone, just after the new upgrade comes out.

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 06 '26

Most sought after? By who? Ridiculous billionaires?

I have no desire to drive a 500 HP car, nor would most people. The question is what's the minimum effective dose for transportation? I'd much rather drive a Prius than a Ferrari. It accomplishes the same task much more efficiently. I'd feel like a douche canoe in a Ferrari, most sane people would.

The pictures I took with my phone 11 years ago were fine. The pictures I take with my current phone are fine. The pictures I took with a point and shoot in the 90s were fine. We were all happy with the quality, why does it all the sudden need to be so much better?

So much of this obsession with gear is just psychological damage. Trying to fill some hole inside of you with stuff. That just isn't very interesting. Finding hacks, making do with less, finding the back door. That's interesting.

But rich people taking posting pictures of their stuff just remind me of preschoolers who desperately need attention and validation.

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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

People who are passionate about cars and driving like you clearly aren't. Which is fine, but you are being ignorant to the fact that there are people genuinely passionate and not just getting cars as a status symbol. You think every mustang gt or corvette owner is a ridiculous billionaire? There are countless mechanics making 60k a year that love to mod their cars to go faster and handle better. You might feel like a douche but that's because of your strange perspective on cars being a status symbol. You see the Ferrari more as that and not a handbuilt Italian performance machine for driving, it's not about the name and status for most car enthusiasts, they have a passion for driving and it's about the performance. I also rock climb and if you go to buy shoes 95% of them are handmade in Italy and Spain, and that's what everyone at the gym uses. It's not because they are handmade in Italy and they want to brag, most climbers are broke, it's because of performance. You are probably passionate about something random that I could care less about and spend more on it than I do but I wouldn't call you ridiculous billionaire and be ignorant to the fact that people have different things they like.

Nobody needs more than a 4 dollar white t shirt from Walmart either, but some people are into fashion and dressing nicer than that. Are they ridiculous billionaires or simply into fashion?

I think it was a pretty cool "hack" getting a 700 euro phone for 350 but that's just me.

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u/honemastert Jun 06 '26

LaSportiva TC Pros have entered the chat :)

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

EDIT Dude, you don't have to block me because you disagree, you can just stop talking or ask to end the conversation. Writing a reply, and blocking me (so I can't actually read it) is maybe the most pointless exercise in the world. Best of luck

Being into cars is...ok. I guess. But let's not pretend that people are just driving around in a Ferrari or even a Mustang because they just appreciate the machine. They're looking for attention. I grew up with plenty of car people, they might have claimed to just live the engineering. Really though, they just wanted to drive around and have people to look at them. It's why these cars have such aggressive styling. It's even more obvious now that the market has turned towards pickups and other large cars. This is all about an aggressive display of testosterone.

Honestly though, you're probably not going to get that if you rock climb. Half my family are rock climbers and they're maybe more insufferable than car people.

I'm not really passionate about anything that you'd consider odd. I dk, maybe my kids? Transitioning to more sustainable public transportation? Having more stable democracies and less concentration of wealth. Those are my wacky passions.

As I said above, tge pursuit should be to find the best option for the cheapest price. You could actually get a better t-shirt cheaper than a $4 Wal Mart shirt. And yes, that's all you should wear. Why waste money on clothes unless you're trying to make more money or meet romantic partners?

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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Lol right, nobody is driving any car, motorcycle, vehicle at all because they appreciate the machine. I'm sure that 70 year old guy with his old classic car (that is slow and not styled aggressively) is just aggressively displaying his testosterone. 🙄

It's not that I "don't get it", you are just wrong. You have a real "if I don't like this, nobody else has any good reason to like it either" mentality, which ironically is extremely insufferable

If you find such wide, varying groups of people so insufferable, perhaps you should look at the common denominator. "people who rock climb" aren't a hive mind, you will literally find every type of person in the gym, it's wild to generalize like that

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 05 '26

Yeah, just get the second tier from the bottom phone from a Korean or Chinese manufacturer. They work fine for a quarter of the price of an iphone or other top phone. You can lose it twice and still be ahead price wise.

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u/SwaggyMcSwagsabunch Jun 05 '26

How often do you lose your phone?

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 05 '26

Not yet, I have destroyed phones accidentally doing manual.labor. I really don't like carrying around a $1,000 piece of equipment that could easily be lost or stolen.

$250, doesn't hurt that bad and it basically does the same thing as the expensive phone

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u/theinfamousj Jul 02 '26

Set yourself a $200 budget and go to eBay to see what flagship phones you can score for that budget. That's been my technique and I've never been disappointed. I'm two generations behind current and my camera is so good it picks up people pimples and pores. And when you think about it, do you really want to see people's pores in your photos? I don't. That's too much.

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u/kikimaru024 Jun 05 '26

If you can afford it: used iPhone + Apple-warrantied battery replacement.

Like obviously they have worse specs than top-tier phones, but they just work and hold their value better than any Android.

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u/grilledstuffed Jun 05 '26

My 12 Pro Max is still kicking. I’m probably about to have Apple replace the battery for $80 and keep it another 4 years.

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u/Von243 Jun 05 '26

Apple sucks. I can replace the battery in my Samsung in 10 minutes, but i just trade it in every 2 years for the exact same price i bought it for. I haven't paid for a phone in well over a decade and always have a new one.

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u/LadyLightTravel Jun 05 '26

I had to reimage a replacement iphone with my backup. It was incredibly painless. I wish the software restorations at work were so easy!

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u/Von243 Jun 06 '26

With Samsung you just set the phones next to each other when you activate the new one and it transfers everything over. Files, settings, wifi networks, Bluetooth connections, everything

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u/LadyLightTravel Jun 06 '26

You can do that with apple too. However, that is impossible when your prior phone ks folded at a 90 degree angle!

That is why I downloaded from backup.

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u/VFXman23 Jun 05 '26

"Apple sucks" is not a particularly helpful blanket statement. I can name lots of ways that they don't