The Surprising Truth About Skill Acquisition and the Power of Price Filtering

The Surprising Truth About Skill Acquisition and the Power of Price Filtering

 

Things often take less time to accomplish than we imagine.

 

Recently, a student asked me about learning to code. I told them it would take just 3-6 months to learn, but I could tell they were skeptical. From my perspective, 3-6 months is more than enough to become a junior programmer—especially if you spend just 2 hours on it every day.

 

This morning, my wife asked how our programming learning was going. My son and I told her we planned to build a game during the upcoming holiday break. In fact, we'd only been learning for 2 weeks. She looked at us in disbelief.

 

When there are no hidden drawbacks, price becomes the most effective filtering tool.

 

Wealthy people tend to choose "expensive" places with fewer crowds, and this is because price acts as a filter. It uses money to block out distractions, save time, ensure safety, and guarantee the quality of the people around you.

 

Price itself serves as a form of "social filtering": those who can afford higher prices are mostly more rational, have social constraints, and pose lower behavioral risks overall.

 

The economist James Buchanan once proposed that some goods are neither pure public goods nor completely private goods—instead, they are "club goods." A typical feature of these goods is the need for a fee-based threshold to maintain quality and order.