[Timothee]

It's funny how we (typically) are just fine spending thousands of dollars for electronics but have a hard time doing it for furniture. (I'm doing it myself: I'm on the couch or the dining table when I work at home)

This guy has well over $2,000 on this $40 "desk", even though this equipment will lose a lot more value over time than a good desk. A MacBook Air will be worth barely anything in 5 years, while you can probably make a desk last half a career at least. Same for a good office chair.

[heyitsnick]

I see the same responses in the comments thread of this blog. "$40 worth desk holding gadgets worth $4000? Seriously?" This line of reasoning makes no sense to me.

Why does the cost of a desk need to match that of the stuff on it? Are you suggesting this home-made desk is not stable, that it puts the contents of it at risk? Sure looks stable to me.

He might be able to justify $2000 on a Macbook Air because there may not be an alternative (depending on his work) or it may be justified with the perceived costs of the device.

There's no point spending $800 on a desk if $40 does the job adequately. Cost is only loosely correlated to quality and value. It's the same line of thinking that goes "well you spend a third of your life sleeping so why do you spend only $200 on a mattress?" Perhaps because a cheap bed and mattress is perfectly comfortable for most people.

[Timothee]

I'm not saying the price of the furniture should match the price of what's on it. That wouldn't make sense.

But it seems common to justify extra costs in the electronics because it's a tool for the job so you want the best thing money can buy, while it's also common to go the cheap way for desk and chair. We see the cost of the electronics as a necessary investment, but not for the furniture. At the end of the day, $2k in furniture is not that much.

Sure a dining table works fine to hold my laptop, but it's just adequate. It could be severely improved. To me, this stand-up desk is like programming on a netbook: technically it does the job, but you can spend some extra money to have a much better setup. The thing is that a bad setup furniture-wise will hurt you badly in the long-term.

As far as this particular desk, no it doesn't look quite stable. (also see dmethvin's comment) Plus the ergonomics are bad: the screen needs to be much higher than the desk surface.

[smackfu]

Do you really think the people who are advocating spending more think the desk looks stable and sufficient? As you say, that makes no sense, so why assume that? Wouldn't it make more sense to think they feel differently about the quality of the desk?

[heyitsnick]

The reason i assumed that is because the comments discuss money. Why are we talking about money if it's just a question of quality?

I'm sure you could build a stable and sufficient desk from raw materials for $40-$100. Way less than the value of what goes on it. What's money got to do with anything?

[Timothee]

Regarding my original comment, while I don't think this desk is of good quality, I was trying to comment more on the mindset we have around this.