Margen
In 1769, Denis Diderot was given a luxurious scarlet dressing gown. The moment he put it on, his old desk looked shabby; he replaced it. Then went the prints on the walls, the straw chair, the rug... until the entire study was “worthy” of the gown. He told the story himself in an essay whose title says it all: “Regrets over my old dressing gown”. And he left a bitter line: of his old gown he was the master; of the new one, the servant.
Two centuries later, anthropologist Grant McCracken gave the pattern a name: the Diderot effect. Our belongings form coherent sets, and a purchase that clashes does not sit still: it pulls at everything else. That is why a new phone “asks for” a case, earphones and a watch; a bike “asks for” the full kit; a freshly painted living room “asks for” a new sofa.
The antidote is a question asked in advance: do I want this thing, or the whole stage set that comes with it? Before buying, price the entire chain. And when something clashes with what you already own, remember Diderot: sometimes what you are buying is not an object but the obligation to buy the next ones.