Why Are Some Things Expensive?

While shopping for a shirt for my husband, I noticed something strange—one shirt costs $20, while another (same fabric, same function) costs $150 just because it has a Ralph Lauren tag. What exactly are we paying for?

I even saw a woman carrying a Michael Kors bag—clear plastic, no zipper. What’s the point? What are we really buying? Is it just about putting ourselves in a certain social class?

Lately, my husband has been looking for a new car. I imagined him driving a Tesla, like many of our friends. Why did I want him to buy a Tesla? Was it about the car’s actual value? Was it about sustainability, charisma, or just keeping up with the crowd? He shut the idea down quickly—he doesn’t like Elon. But I kept questioning myself: what makes something worth it?

Last week, we got a new vacuum. We could have bought any brand, but we went with Dyson. Why do we trust certain brands more? In this case, we had firsthand experience—our old Dyson worked well. My father, a mechanic at heart, was amazed by Dyson’s clever engineering—how the vacuum’s suction powers the roller without extra parts. A brand wraps a product in confidence, and that confidence builds trust.

The same logic applies to product reviews. When I buy books on Amazon, if a book has 300,000 positive reviews, I’m sold. But what if I’m overlooking high-quality books that never went viral? Is this just survival of the fittest in the business world?

And then there’s art. Some pieces sell for ridiculous amounts. Like the banana taped to a wall—that banana was one of the cheapest fruits you can buy, yet a collector paid who knows what for it. Then he just ate it.

Scarcity and the Price of Treasures

I used to tell my kids that humans, like children on Earth, dig things up and call them treasures. People want them, and suddenly, they become expensive. The harder it is to find something, the more valuable it becomes—like diamonds and pearls.

That’s branding in its simplest form. But branding isn’t just about luxury goods—it’s everywhere, even in science. A research lab, just like a company, thrives on reputation and visibility.

Branding in Science: The Prestige Factor

For scientists, branding yourself or your lab depends on publications—the number, but more importantly, the impact. There are other metrics, like the h-index, but search committees often scan for elite journal names and prestigious university affiliations on a CV.

Want to "brand up"? You need reviews—in the form of recommendation letters. And if your recommenders are famous, well-ranked, and highly impactful, then your letter shines even brighter.

Selling your research is crucial for obtaining funding. Your idea must fill a significant knowledge gap, answering questions that bring science closer to real-world solutions. Even publishing a paper involves wrapping raw data into a compelling narrative—highlighting the "selling points" to make it stand out.

Selling Yourself: A Tougher Game

Branding yourself as a scientist is tricky. "I can solve your biomedical research problems"—too ambitious. "I run well-planned, controlled experiments, and if p < 0.05, I reject the null"—not exactly a TED Talk moment.

But hey, in science, sometimes that’s all the branding you need. :)