objects of desire · 2 min read
When the price disappears, nobody asks for one graphics card. They ask for seven.
The most wanted product in our catalog left the shelf 34,894 times in 90 days, spread across only 4,926 carts. That is seven per person.
by Arthur
published September 20, 2026
Every store publishes a best-seller list, and every one of those lists is a little bit of a lie: it measures what people managed to afford. Ours measures something else. Here the total is always zero, so nobody is choosing with their wallet. The ranking becomes a list of what the world would want if money did not exist.
Over the last 90 days that came to 224,065 order lines across 27,532 carts. The winner is not shocking: a graphics card. The quantity is.
The podium, and the column that matters
| Product | Units | Carts | Per cart |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🎮 RTX 4090 24GB | 34,894 | 4,926 | 7.1 |
| 📱 MacBook 16 M5 Max | 19,846 | 3,537 | 5.6 |
| 💄 Six-pack of face masks | 12,547 | 1,741 | 7.2 |
| 🎮 i9 gaming PC with RTX 5070 Ti | 9,301 | 3,332 | 2.8 |
| 📱 iPhone 17 Pro 256GB | 8,722 | 1,429 | 6.1 |
| 🎮 RTX 4090 Asus TUF | 7,070 | 2,474 | 2.9 |
| 💄 Centella face cream | 6,283 | 2,334 | 2.7 |
| 🛋️ 77-inch LG OLED TV | 3,872 | 1,591 | 2.4 |
Base: 224,065 order lines across 27,532 orders, 90 days to September 20, 2026.
The right-hand column is the interesting one. People who put the RTX 4090 in the cart do not put one in: they put in 7.1 on average. Adding both versions of the same card on the list, that is 41,964 units requested in three months.
Nobody needs seven graphics cards
One RTX 4090 sits in the catalog at $10,370. Seven of them run to $72,590, which is a car in most of the world. The 34,894 units people asked for add up to $362 million of money that never existed. The MacBook adds another $273 million on top.
And here is the part I did not expect: the expensive item is ordered in LARGER quantities than the cheap one. A $5 face cream goes out at 2.7 per cart. A $10,370 card goes out at 7.1. If impulse were about spending, it would be the other way around, because the cheap thing is the one that fits a budget.
Once price stops existing, the unit of measurement for desire stops being money and becomes quantity.
It makes sense once you picture what the person is doing. They are not building a setup, they are testing the ceiling. One card is a purchase, seven is a joke at your own expense, and the joke only lands because the real wanting was sitting underneath it.
That is why we publish the number instead of hiding it. The cart here is the cart you would build in a real store if the invoice never came. It is slightly embarrassing to look at, and that is exactly what makes it useful.