> On Jun 22, 2016, at 10:25 PM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:
>
>  Even in just the last 10 years,
> proportion of income spent on physical goods has decreased from about
> 26% to 20% of household expenditure in the UK, and similar figures
> seem to apply in other developed nations.  This has corresponded with
> a comparable rise in spending on services and non-material goods.

I think you are confusing cause and effect here. We aren’t really choosing to purchase services and immaterial goods over physical.

We’re spending less on physical goods primarily because the rapid industrialization of the world since the beginning of the 20th century (and particularly China in the last few decades) has produced staggering economies of scale, when coupled with the enormous amount of automation available to their industries today.

We all have big flat-screen TeeVees because those big flat-screen TeeVees cost vastly less to make than the old CRT models. The same is true of refrigerators, air conditioners, cars and just about any other manufactured good you care to examine.

People are spending less on physical goods because physical goods are *cheaper*, and there’s a limit to how much physical goods you need to buy (or can fit in your home).

This, in turn, has freed up a larger portion of their income to spend on other things like services and iTunes and e-Books.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs