No, not Albania. Yes, the people are poorer when measured in USD, but infinitely richer in quality of life. This is not just my observation, I knew quite a few expats from the West (US/UK) that share my opinion after living here for years. I know people who work minimum wage jobs in this country earning less than $500/month that live far better lives than those earning minimum wage jobs in Canada and the US. You can get an apartment here for $100/month. They have their own apartments (or share with friends or family), live dignified, independent, interesting, non-lonely lives with lots to do and enough free time. Meanwhile, the minimum wage workers I know in Canada and the US struggle to survive and have nothing to live for. Admittedly this is not just about cost optimization, this is about something gone wrong with culture and way of life in the West.

And restaurants are not just "cheap for me" because I earn in USD. It's also relatively cheap for them, i.e. they can afford to occasionally enjoy a beautiful restaurant even on a minimum wage salary. Anyway cost is not the issue, the point is that they do things that make no sense financially, such as maintain a collection of live houseplants and vintage artwork in their restaurants and stores, just because there's a culture of beauty and art as opposed to a culture of pure profit.

Maybe it's ok to be a bit poorer if it makes you a bit happier.

Squandering money is easy, so that's a theory you can test yourself.

The issue in all similar stories is that it is not "a bit" poorer and not happier at all.

This is the typical Western have-it-all superiority complex thinking. "No one has it better than us. No one has built a better civilization than us." I say that as a Westerner myself. You simply can't imagine what a better life looks like, and how shitty life has gotten in the over-financialized West until you actually experience something truly different.

A bit harsh. This is not a "superiority complex" this is my experience of actually visiting third world countries and the reality of data (education, health, migration, etc). Also strange to hit on Westerners when you mentioned that you live in Europe.

This sounds a little like the utopian and ideological Westerner who thinks that the West is 'bad' (I don't even know what "over-financialized West" means...) and non-Westerners may be poorer but happier, which in the extreme archs all the way back to the "Myth of the Noble savage" [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage

It is Europe but not the West. The “West” I am defining here as the NATO countries with a high GDP. Over-financialized means exactly that — over-reliance on interest-based and venture capital funding, and a culture of profit optimization at all costs that ruins everything else.