Bob can choose whether to to hide this waste (at a cost of the utility loss by having $300 and worse listening experience, but a “benefit” of misleading Tim about his misplaced altruism)
True in my example. I acknowledge that my example is wrong and should have been more explicit about having an alternative. Quoting myself from the comment to Vladimir_Nesov:
Anyways, the unwritten thing is that Bob care about having a quality headphone and a good pair of shoes equally. So given that he already has an alright headphone, he would get more utility by buying a good pairs of shoes instead. It is essentially a choice between (a) getting a $300 headphone and (b) getting a $100 headphone and a $300 pair of shoes.
If the bad translation is good enough that the incremental value of a good translation doesn’t justify doing it, then that is your answer.
I do accept this as the rational answer, doesn’t mean it is not irritating. If A (skillful translator) cares about having a good translation of X slightly more than Y, and B (poor translator) cares about Y much more than X. If B can act first, he can work on X and “force” A (via expected utility) to work on Y. This is a failure of mine to not talk about difference in preference in my examples and expect people to extrapolate and infer it out.
True in my example. I acknowledge that my example is wrong and should have been more explicit about having an alternative. Quoting myself from the comment to Vladimir_Nesov:
Anyways, the unwritten thing is that Bob care about having a quality headphone and a good pair of shoes equally. So given that he already has an alright headphone, he would get more utility by buying a good pairs of shoes instead. It is essentially a choice between (a) getting a $300 headphone and (b) getting a $100 headphone and a $300 pair of shoes.
I do accept this as the rational answer, doesn’t mean it is not irritating. If A (skillful translator) cares about having a good translation of X slightly more than Y, and B (poor translator) cares about Y much more than X. If B can act first, he can work on X and “force” A (via expected utility) to work on Y. This is a failure of mine to not talk about difference in preference in my examples and expect people to extrapolate and infer it out.