Speculation is the new luxury good

As more of our lives move online, the ability to own scarce digital items is only becoming more important, and the NFT-based digital asset market will increasingly mirror the luxury market. An authentic Birkin bag is able to fetch prices hundreds of times higher than the exact same bag in knock-off form because owning the real thing says something ... See more

the frenzy around NFTs right now is instructive. Because much of the hype is pure status-seeking. And that’s a healthy reminder that people will always find value in being early to the next thing, part of the innermost ingroup of something cool. And that’s a feature, not a bug for NFTs. It may in fact be the point. NFTs are evidence of your cultura... See more

To participate in luxury culture, a person does not even need to participate in the luxury market. They can own, share and trade in luxury images. As the scenarios outlined below show, luxury’s migrating towards ever more imaginary - literally and figuratively - from bizarrely imaginative designs that are bound to do well on TikTok to images t... See more

Where will we see luxury software transform markets? Already, in the consumer productivity space, we’re starting to see “luxury” email clients, calendars, browsers, and search engines emerge. While all of these capabilities are freely accessible to consumers and rather commoditized, companies like Superhuman for email, Cron (now Notion) for calenda... See more

My claim is that luxury goods are gradually becoming a noisier signal of one's position in society. This isn't to say that they don't still confer status — they clearly do. People still buy material items to signal their status. But because they've become a noisier signal over time, people are starting to signal their status with their beliefs and ... See more

I think all of this feels more natural to people who are immersed in the fine art market, or the market for rare limited-edition sneakers, etc. (I am not!) These are markets in which scarcity by design is a huge part of the fun, and that’s not true for all, or even most, markets for creative work. (I’m thinking of the market for, say, streaming TV ... See more

New Luxury signifies being connected - around community, culture, and ethos. On that foundation, goods and services are given status, and the certainty of

Luxury beliefs have, to a large extent, replaced luxury goods.