I'll agree with and extend your remarks on a tangent that at one point in human history literacy was nice but not required to participate in the economy. Currently shopping by catalog and spec and datasheet is for the cognitive elite like engineers, but soon enough its going to be a required new higher minimum of economic participation. You'll pick out your next bicycle by reading technical manuals and holding a ruler up to your leg, or you'll fail miserably at buying a bicycle. Just like its sad that illiterate or innumerate people get screwed in todays economy, people who can't shop like an engineer are going to get screwed in coming decades. What you're looking at is evolution of the economy to increase income inequality as it always does and increase specialization as it always does and require more work out of people as it always does. There's nothing really new about it, its just people who can't shop like an engineer are just not going to be able to shop anymore, at least not successfully, just like someone illiterate has a rough time shopping today.
Sounds like you you're mistaking "wealthy people" for "the cognitive elite"! The shopping behaviors you're describing are just those of people who have either the time or capital to spend trying to get marginally better stuff.
> [...] soon enough its going to be a required new higher minimum of economic participation. You'll pick out your next bicycle by reading technical manuals and holding a ruler up to your leg, or you'll fail miserably at buying a bicycle.
I don't know what kind of bicycle shopping you're envisioning, but it sounds pretty damn weird to me. It's kind of hard to buy a bike that just doesn't work at all for most people. Even if your bike is several sizes off, it's just going to be more obnoxious to pedal. I'm in Boston, and I see tons of people commute around on bikes which really don't fit them at all and they do just fine. Even the crappiest bike is leagues better than walking
Also, I don't know how many people currently buy their bikes online who aren't already really into cycling vs people who buy them used or at a brick and mortar store, but I doubt it's high compared to, say, clothes.
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> Just like its sad that illiterate or innumerate people get screwed in todays economy, people who can't shop like an engineer are going to get screwed in coming decades.
The type of shopping behavior you're describing is a luxury of the rich, not a necessity for most people. If you were to say, "not-wealthy people will be screwed over in the decades to come" I'd agree and point out that that's already the case.
This is a pretty odd assumption. Why do you assume that doing your research means valuing money _less_? If anything, I would assume the opposite. I grew up lower middle class with a scholarship to a school full of upper class kids, and doing my research usually meant getting the best value for my money : when you have lots of money, it's often easier to just throw a bunch of money at the most commonly purchased product perceived as luxury instead of spending your time doing research on which provides the best value.
Your bike example doesn’t really make much sense, because for the vast majority of people, the cheapest bike will do. Most people don’t bother measuring themselves first, and there’s basically no need to do so at all.
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To clarify: I don’t think that doing the type of research you described on a thing you’re buying means you value money less, but that it means you probably aren’t shopping for that thing out of necessity.