Imagine you are doing some work around the house and realize you need a hammer. You don’t have one yet, and you need to get something; what do you do?

Odds are you will probably drive down to your local hardware store and buy the first hammer you see that is a good price. You might even go to a big box store like Target and get whatever hammer they are selling in their 3 aisles of home improvement supplies.

You’re certainly not going to shop around from store to store for the best hammer deal. You’re not going to watch YouTube videos demoing an array of hammers, and you’re not going to read reviews for the top 5 hammers this season. You’re certainly not going to check to see if Craftsman is going to release a new hammer in the next few months that will be better than what’s on the shelves now.

Nope, you’re not going to do any of that, you’re going to go to the store, pick one that seems fine (they all seem fine, don’t they?), make sure it’s one of the cheaper ones available, and get on with your life.

This is not how any of us would shop for a computer, tablet, or smartphone, but it is how a lot of the world does it. So the next time you think someone is crazy for not recognizing how much better “X is than Y” remember that you probably couldn’t tell a home improvement expert a damn thing about why you bought your hammer, it was just the first one you saw at a decent price. And you know what? Even though it’s not the best hammer, it totally works for what you need, and that’s all you need.

People who don’t buy the best computer/phone, or even the best device for the price, are not unusual and they’re certainly not acting irrationally. They just hve different priorities than we do, and sometimes that’s easy to forget. So by all means, help the non-techies in your life make the best decisions possible, but don’t be offended if they choose something different than you’d expect.