- Did you misplace your theater tickets? Ignore their cost and buy new ones.
- Was your bike stolen? If it made sense to buy one before and you are in a similar situation, buy a new one.
- Have you invested a lot of money/effort towards a specific direction of a company? Ignore the costs and change to the “correct” directions. (Usually, by changing CEOs).
These arguments are based on the sunken cost fallacy. There are mores. I find that they are coming from a good place but they are oversimplifications that may lead to wrong conclusions if taken at face value.
- You can be upset you misplaced your theater tickets and develop a system of where you put such tickets so this doesn’t happen again.
- The value of the bike may not have been just financial but also sentimental after going many rides with it. Trying to recover it, or getting some time to process its loss is not lost time.
- A company doesn’t have a direction in the abstract sense only. There are people who implement it and their morale may be affected by a sudden, not sufficiently well justified, change. Paying attention to these extra costs may change the equation.
In conclusion, the sunken cost fallacy makes sense in some closed systems, but sometimes the systems may (have the opportunity to) change significantly enough that this is an oversimplification.