How could a motherfucking donut ever be a Veblen Good?
It is fried grease with some sugar based topping on it.
A Veblen good is a type of good for which demand increases as the price rises, typically due to its exclusivity and perceived social value.
www.investopedia.com
I guess several of you noted the answer in the posts above.
Young people are more succeptible to marketing and social media influencing than ever before. And we have gotten away from unbiased and unbribed print publications such as Consumer Reports that did real evaluations.
And with less food and drink preparation at home, everything is now a mystery. Coffee comes from coffee beans, and there is only so much that Starbucks can really do differently in making a cup of it than what can be done at home or in the workplace, including a shaker of Pumpkin Spice.
Many market entrants plan from the get-go to be a supplier of Veblen Goods. They don’t start at a low price and then raise it because everyone loves our product so much that we can’t make enough of it. They start high and do fake-it until we make-it. And a great number of them, via excellent marketing and influencing do in fact make it big.
One mistake that is made in teaching economics is to tell the kids that markets are always efficient. So they go through life always believing that every product and service that costs more is better than those that cost less. That is likely true a high percentage of the time, like I would guess 60 percent of the time. But 40 percent is a damn high number, and they never give the example of how a $1 chocolate cream-filled donut from the local bakery can be better tasting than a $4.50 blueberry-glazed ”world-famous” Mochi donut.
Some of them eventually figure it out, but many don’t. I do commend the Japanese for excellent marketing. They emphasize group activities and peer pressure. Personally, I hate sushi. Reddit has a support group for people like me, and one poster noted that very few solo eaters ever get sushi at the restaurant to eat there, or for take out. When you have no reason to fake the enjoyment of eating very expensive raw fish on rice with, you will choose a hot, cooked meal instead, often at a much lower price. I suspect the same is true with these Japanese donuts.