Surface and Substance

In the reading “Surface and Substance,” Virginia Postrel show several examples of how people will decide on what product to buy, by how it looks rather than how it performs. I think that this is very true. To me if a new product is displayed better and is full of colors it instantly attracts me to it. This is what the producer of the goods is good at doing.

If the producer of the goods thinks that instead of using all their money on the design of a product to make it more efficient, that they will take some of the money and use it to package the product and get commercial going about the new product to make more sells on it in return then they will do that. But in doing this than the truth of how efficient the new product is will soon be discovered when it only lasts a few weeks before wearing out.

When I was looking to buy my first car an example of this happened to me. I found a very nice looking truck that was a shinny grey color and had a new set of rims on it. The person who was selling the car said that it had a new paint job and was ready to go. So my dad and I took it out on a test drive. We found that the oil gage light was on indicating that the oil level was low. So we pulled over and took a closer look at the truck. We found that it had oil all over the engine. It had a few other things that looked like they were in tough shape as well. Then we looked and saw that the transmission had an oil leak as well. So after seeing this I decided that the truck would just be a pain in the butt and wouldn’t be very reliable. The guy who was selling it though that if he put a nice paint job on it and some new wheels that it would hide the real problems that the truck had.

I think that because of everyone paying money for the nicest clothing designs and the high dollar houses are trying to be seen. These people will do anything to look as though they are living a happy life. But in reality they are in massive debt and they can’t get out of it. This is one reason why I think our economy is doing so badly. But other people such as myself, sometimes don’t realize that we will buy the shinny wrapped gum over the dull packaged gum. When really the dull packaged gum is the better choice to make. So if we start to look beneath the surface of things and start to see the truth of things we will make better decisions in the end.

http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/aesthetics/bldef_aestheticvalue.htm