the.com/sunk cost
the money's already gone, but your ego wants a sequel.
means a past cost you cannot recover, which economics says should be irrelevant to future decisions but rarely is.
from the term comes from cost accounting, where money 'sunk' into a project is treated as permanently buried, unrecoverable, gone; behavioral economists later showed humans dig anyway.
also calledthe concorde fallacy, after the doomed jet
animals immunepigeons and rats mostly ignore sunk costs
first namedformalized in economics papers in the 1980s
military versionescalation of commitment in failing wars
for instance
concorde — britain and france kept funding it past 1976 despite known losses
vietnam war — us escalation partly justified by prior casualties, not future gains
blockbuster stores — execs clung to retail leases as netflix ate the model
unfinished phd — students stay years past when leaving would net-benefit them