The point is loss aversion is a cognitive blind spot which results in people being less happy.

Perhaps you really do make use of a guest bedroom often enough it’s worth spending 10’s of thousands on. But isn’t the case everywhere. Perhaps you’re wasting money on excessive car insurance etc across a lifetime of choice it adds up to a massive drag.

In terms of EV’s people are spending more time driving to stations because they picture the once a year vacation driving taking 1 hour longer rather than the wasted 5 minutes 48 weeks a year which costs them 4.

None of what you say applies to me.

Think whatever you want, but loss aversion is a well studied issue. And you are definitely making sub optimal decisions because you’re human.

In the end I’m just describing a common mistake, not suggesting you specifically should buy an EV or whatever.

>"And you are definitely making sub optimal decisions because you’re human."

Nope. I prefer to do what I want. And want is the criteria and hence optimal by definition. What others might think about it does not matter at all.

This is about what would actually make you happier down the line, not about what other people think.

If you could accurately predict what would make you happy, and decide based on that, it would be optimal.

You don't.

> so what's your point.

My point is that there is a cognitive bias towards overweighting the allocation of resources toward low-frequency events.

> My point is that there is a cognitive bias towards overweighting the allocation of resources toward low-frequency events.

As I pointed out upthread, low frequency is not the same as low probability.

It might not make sense to upfront allocate resources for a low probability event, but it certainly could make sense for a high probability event even if it was low frequency ... like a spare bedroom, or a dining room, or a car with good range.

The probability of using those things are 1 i.e. guaranteed.

I think you’ll probably also find that the “spare” bedroom in many houses ends up getting used for other things—storage, a hobby room, (famously) perhaps an office or second office.

My spare bedroom has a futon couch but I actually use the space for various other things most of the time. Most people may have space that’s underutilized much of the time but that doesn’t mean it’s sealed off until they have an overnight guest or a large dinner part. Things aren’t that binary.

I'm surprised to see such a bad take on resource allocation on HN.

When provisioning servers, do you average your throughput and get enough capacity for that average?

Of course not, that would be assinine. You need to be able to serve 24 hours a day, even - especially - during your edge cases. Follow your advice and explain to the CEO that since Black Friday is a "low frequency event," it's fine that your site was down during that one day.

A better argument is that you should choose things, including houses and cars, based on edge cases since that is where meaningful differentiation occurs. If I take one road trip each quarter and my car is unable to handle it, then I bought the wrong car.

No, the correct analogy would be paying for, maintaining, and storing enough servers for Black Friday year round when the option existg to rent them on Black Friday for 1% the cost.

What exactly do you think AWS does mate, during black Friday?

Exactly my point

Unless your point is that someone should somehow rent an extra bedroom in their own house, it isn't. Such things aren't fungible.

Maybe not with the once per quarter road trip. That might not be a bad frequency for renting a nice road trip vehicle. But I generally agree with what you are saying.

You do not really know how low the frequency is for a particular person and how important those events are. I think you are making baseless guesses.

Some of these are family, friends I know very well, and even myself in the past. So I have some reliable information.

I honestly wonder how your friends and family feel about this attitude. Do you think they share it?