I like stuff. It is fun to play with.
Of course you don't need the things, but they are enjoyable. I like to live a life beyond bare necessities.
Of course I may be wrong here but it sure doesn’t feel like that; I’ve had the blessing to be able to compare my life with a lot of money closely with my life with very little money.
I have also lived having money and not having money. It is way better to have money. Not having to stress about bills, not having to stress about things breaking or needing repair, being able to eat good food when you want... it makes life better. The stresses of figuring out how to get by when you are poor really hamper your ability to enjoy life.
I tend to bounce around from low to high cost of living locations. My mindset changes a lot without it really being under my control.
In a high CoL area the limits to what you want can be truly absurd because there's so much wealth swimming about. It's normal.
It takes some grounding, but also interaction with a community that accepts you for who you are, to temper that.
I am not sure how that changes me liking to play with gadgets.
But it's no problem of course if you're happy as you are. Good for you. The problem is society expects everyone to work 9-5, 5 days a week, 45 to 50 weeks a year. That's a little insane, and for many people, intolerable.
9-5 three days a week.
Whatever.
40 hours labour just isn't necessary for all of us.
We need to work to actually produce things like food and transport and so on. Services.
The vast majority of people I know are not working for that. It's a side effect. We're in this absurd zero sum race to outbid each other for housing (and not just in SF/London, it's all over nowadays).
Like, come on. Once you have an income at a level sufficient to spend, say, 50% on a house, get a mortgage etc, you have truly terrifying amounts of funds left over in terms of normal material goods in the prosperous towns.