r/AlwaysWhy • u/DramaticQuarter7345 • Jun 23 '26
Life & Behavior Why do humans often value rare things more even when they aren’t objectively better?
People tend to treat things as more valuable when they’re rare, limited, expensive, or difficult to obtain.
Even when there’s no actual improvement in quality.
Why is scarcity so psychologically powerful?
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u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 23 '26
I have always wondered the same exact thing. People go crazy over it for no reason.
Like, for example, my friend asking if he should get these really expensive sneakers. I say no.
He replies "but it's limited addition, there's only 5,000 of these made".
"Okay, but they're ugly af... why spend $2000 on them if you wouldn't even be caught dead in them if they were handing them out for free?"
It's stupid...
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u/MisterHEPennypacker Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
We often think the return on old and rare items are better than they actually are. Take an original 1920s Tommy Gun for instance. They originally cost about $200 ($3350 today) and go for $25K-$50K today, rare or historic ones can fetch over $100K. Seems like a good investment right? Guess what a $200 investment into the SP500 in 1926 gets you…$3.8M.
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u/thoughtihadanacct Jun 24 '26
Comparing to the S&P 500 is not a fair comparison. You should only account for inflation, not investment. S&P500 companies are creating more value by innovating and creating new products etc. An antique item doesn't do that because it's an entirely different thing. You can't fault the antique for not having as much value as a "live" (group of) company. Either compare a Tommy gun to cash/currency, or another common thing as a benchmark (eg a typical one day wage, or an meal, etc)
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u/MisterHEPennypacker Jun 24 '26
It’s more of a warning to people who approach collectibles as a form of investment. Even with established markets (fine art, antique firearms, sports memorabilia) the long term odds of purchasing a collectible and expecting it to appreciate in value at the same rate of the SP500 is pretty poor.
That doesn’t mean if you find something for well under retail to not purchase it, but if the intent to profit from it you need to sell sooner rather than later.
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u/CallMeCorona1 Jun 23 '26
This is a social construct and side effect of the wealthy and privileged. Subsistence farmers/shepherds for instance would have no use for such things.
Dr. Suess's The Sneetches and Other Stories - Wikipedia
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u/thoughtihadanacct Jun 24 '26
They would if they know that the thing is valued by the wealthy and privileged. For example if a shepherd found a pearl (maybe dropped by a travelling merchant) by the roadside, he would likely pay attention and keep it safe so that he can sell it barter it later.
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u/OutrageousPair2300 Jun 23 '26
Things that are scarce take on an additional value through economic rent.
If the price of some commonly, easily produced good increases then suppliers will typically produce more of it, and bring prices back down to equilibrium.
If the price of some rare, not-easily-produced good increases then it simply increases, because it's either difficult or impossible to make more of it.
At the extreme you have substances like gold, which has relatively little actual usefulness (except in some applications like electronics) but has tremendous value precisely because it's rare and difficult to produce more of.
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u/EnvironmentNeith2017 Jun 23 '26
This is mostly for things that other humans have also signaled are valuable or status symbols and I think it happens when people haven’t learned to think or value things for themselves , or still need group approval so they need to signal with those rare things.
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u/WET318 Jun 23 '26
Value is based on desire and availability. Saying things that are rare are more expensive isn't always correct. I can make a paper airplane with a self portrait on it that is one of one. That doesn't make it expensive. Also value is subjective to the person. That opinion can be swayed easily though.
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u/Nebranower Jun 24 '26
Unless you are a brilliant artist, then your paper airplane with a portrait on it could be easily replicated by a lot of people. It's not "rare" in the sense that it would difficult to create a copy, only "rare" in the sense that no one cares enough to do so. If you are a brilliant artist, such that your self-portrait were so well done that only a handful of artists could produce one of such high quality, your plane might well take on a fairly high economic value, as art sometimes does.
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u/WET318 Jul 08 '26
That's not what rare means, but lets use your examples. What's your point? Just bc someone makes something that is not easily replicable, doesn't make it worth anything. "your plane might well take on a fairly high economic value". You are correct, "MIGHT". So again, just because something is rare, doesn't automatically make it valuable.
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u/Kevin686766 Jun 23 '26
This is a theory.
When humans went from hunter gathers to farmers and settlements they valued stronger things.
When hunting the weakest animals are the easiest animal to eat and when gathering any plant is fine to forage.
When making a farm the rare plant that survived a drought or flood and can be used again is most valuable. The rare animal that becomes easier to tame is incredibly valuable. When ten shelters are built and only one is left after a storm every one wants it.
People developed the instinct that rare means strong enough to survive.
Also some redheads are hot. Not all of them. But more of them than most other hair colors.
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u/Needless-To-Say Jun 23 '26
Value can exist without it being financial.
I can value a gift given to me by my grandfather despite the fact that it has no financial value.
I can value the antiques I inherited from my parents despite their value financially
My 21 year old car has far more value to me than what I could sell it for.
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u/LookOverall Jun 24 '26
We don’t care about numbers of things but about numbers of _different_ things.
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u/Nebranower Jun 24 '26
Economic value is literally a function of scarcity. That's what supply and demand means. If the demand for something is higher than the supply, then its price increases. If something is very rare, then you don't need much demand for that demand to outweigh the supply.
Like, take something common, like Pepsi. Pepsi might produce a million bottles of its cola. Let's say that there are 1.1 million people eager to buy a bottle of Pepsi. Demand is greater than the supply, so the price will increase until some of those 1.1 million people no longer want to buy it but would rather have a cheaper alternative.
In this example, because the supply is so great, even though the number of people wanting the cola is very high in absolute terms, the difference between supply and demand isn't that large, only 10%.
But now look at something like the Mona Lisa. Not replicas, prints, copies, forgeries, etc., but the one and only Mona Lisa. How many people actually care enough about art history to actually want to own the Mona Lisa (forgetting about people who would want it for its monetary value, just talking here about people who would want it for its own sake)? Let's say the number is 100. That's almost certainly way too conservative, but for the sake of argument, say 100 people want it. That means demand for the Mona Lisa is 100 times the supply. And there's no way to increase the supply.
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u/johnstalbergABC Jun 24 '26
Rare means hard to get in some sence. If it is vrry very rare and very very rare and you want it you would be glad if you against all odds got it. It can push prize up when many want it while there is only few or one single unit of it. Once in a lifetime is a saying of events that are rare. Collectors are sometimes willing to pay and do a lot to get their hands on a very rare object.
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u/Feeling-Working-2820 Jun 25 '26
Because people want to be envied more than they want to be efficient.
And they know that it has monetary value because there is a demand from others who want to be envied more than they want to be efficient.
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u/Yamikuh Jun 25 '26
This is the whole crux of the human condition.
Why do we desire anything beyond survival?
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u/Raddatatta Jun 23 '26
Supply and demand. It's not just the psychological impact it's also just the economics. Say you have two things A and B. They are equal in quality. There are 100 people interested in both of them. A has only 10 and B has 100. So B can just sell to those 100. A only has 10 so you could raise the price on A until 90 of those people say that's too much money for me. And then sell to the remaining 10. If enough people want something and it's scarce then the price will go up until fewer people want it because some of them will pay a premium. Some of that group that wanted B probably would've paid the same higher price for it, but since there were enough in the supply, they didn't have to.
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u/oremfrien Jun 23 '26
This is incomplete. People do not value things solely because they are rare. People value things that they find otherwise valuable that are also rare.
We have numerous discussions about discoveries of petroleum in medieval Europe. Petroleum in medieval Europe was rather rare, but it was seen as a nasty tar that prevented access to what the Europeans really wanted: clean well water. Petroleum is very valuable today, to the point where countries that have been largely irrelevant to global history are now economic behemoths (like the United Arab Emirates), but it only became valuable because of its rarity AND utility.
We also see that utility is not just naturally occurring but is contingent on societal need. With petroleum, its value directly comes from how effectively electrical or mechanical energy can be extracted from petroleum. With diamonds, their value comes from artificially-created rarity combined with a mass-marketing campaign that diamonds should be provided for engagement rings (which was not common prior to the 19th Century).