If you went from eating at McDonald’s to nicer restaurants, it would be a mistake to focus solely on the price increase; you would get better quality ingredients, service… less cancer...
If you went from eating at McDonald’s to eating at restaurants that are five to ten times more expensive than McDonald’s, then I would conclude that the price increase (or, rather, the resulting signaling effect) is, in fact, the primary or even the entire reason for the change.
(When it comes to food quality, if you went from eating at McDonald’s to eating at, say, this place, you would get at least 75% of the maximum possible benefit that you could possibly get from upgrading your restaurant preferences. Note the menu; those are main courses, and they are at most 150% as expensive as McDonald’s—not 500–1000%!)
A more meta note: it seems reasonable to me to expect, if you’re discovering a new field, that achieving proficiency in that area would require investing a significant amount of resources. So perhaps you shouldn’t be as surprised
You’re equivocating between effort and money, here. It would not surprise me that proficiency in a new field would require investing significant time and effort. If, however, it allegedly requires investing significant money, then I would either suspect that someone is trying to sell me something (or, more subtly, benefiting from the perpetuation of norms that require me to buy something)—or I would seriously reconsider my decision to acquire proficiency in said field.
If you went from eating at McDonald’s to eating at restaurants that are five to ten times more expensive than McDonald’s, then I would conclude that the price increase (or, rather, the resulting signaling effect) is, in fact, the primary or even the entire reason for the change.
(When it comes to food quality, if you went from eating at McDonald’s to eating at, say, this place, you would get at least 75% of the maximum possible benefit that you could possibly get from upgrading your restaurant preferences. Note the menu; those are main courses, and they are at most 150% as expensive as McDonald’s—not 500–1000%!)
You’re equivocating between effort and money, here. It would not surprise me that proficiency in a new field would require investing significant time and effort. If, however, it allegedly requires investing significant money, then I would either suspect that someone is trying to sell me something (or, more subtly, benefiting from the perpetuation of norms that require me to buy something)—or I would seriously reconsider my decision to acquire proficiency in said field.