SortStack #2369 — 2032-12-03

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A grande latte at Starbucks $4.50

   The coffee beans in a latte cost the chain well under fifty cents — milk, labor, and rent make up most of what you pay.

2. A bespoke suit from Savile Row in London $5.5K

   A true bespoke suit takes around 50 hours of handwork and multiple fittings. The word 'bespoke' itself comes from Savile Row — cloth 'spoken for' by a customer.

3. An average American funeral with burial $8K

   The funeral industry's pricing was so opaque that US law now requires itemized price lists — caskets alone often carry markups of several hundred percent.

4. An average American wedding $33K

   The single biggest line item is usually the venue. Meanwhile the median engagement ring, despite the marketing, costs a fraction of the 'three months salary' rule.

5. A new hot-air balloon with basket and burner $40K

   The envelope fabric slowly degrades with UV exposure — most balloons retire after a few hundred flight hours, making cost per flight surprisingly high.

6. Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, when Microsoft bought it $2.5B

   Creator Markus 'Notch' Persson sold partly due to burnout, tweeting that he didn't want the responsibility — Minecraft went on to become the best-selling game ever.

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