Pain and Pleasure

Someone told me once that people buy things based on two things, and two things only. Pain or pleasure.

Wow. Profound!

But is it true? Are we really that simple? Can an entire world's economy really be tied up in a nice little bow like that? Well, let's think of some examples.

Buying electricity. Hard to imagine as pain. Rather, I think we pay for electricity more for the avoidance of pain that anything else. Like our food rotting in the fridge. Let's try "the avoidance of pain" on for size.

Car: avoiding taking a bus or biking in the rain. Food: the avoidance of starvation melted with the pleasure of eating tasty foods. Clothes: avoiding the painful embarrassment of having a pit-stained shirt. The story seems to check out, no?

After thinking of hundreds of examples, I can't think of one example where people aren't buying things to avoid pain and/or to receive pleasure. But there is another interesting fact that seems to have gone unnoticed.

I don't think people buy things based on pain or pleasure. Sure, there will always be ways to buy things that solve a particular pain or result in a particular pleasure, but those are not the things with massive commercial appeal. The massively successful things are those that give you both at once.

Something to think about.