[rogerrogerr]

ROI is implicitly against the alternative or status quo:

- Fridge: has ROI vs. going to the store more often or getting food poisoning.

- Washing machine: Has ROI measured in the value of your time spent not slapping clothes against a board to make them clean.

- Stove: ROI vs. using and maintaining a fire pit, with the risk of burning your house down factored in.

- MacBook: ROI is how much work you can get done vs. a Windows machine, or not having a laptop and doing math really fast by hand on paper.

Etc. It is suspicious that there isn’t a “this will pay for itself in N years vs. not having it” statement somewhere.