I'm a toothpaste last-bit-squeezer for sure. It's not loss aversion -- it's waste aversion. There's probably lots of reasons why I don't like to see things wasted, including social, or family upbringing, or personality. But I have the same impulses with food, clothes, computers, almost everything.
I don't always buy food in bulk to save on cost, or look for the best deals, but whatever I have bought I try my best not to waste. It's irresponsible. Maybe in some ways I feel it's bad for the environment, or sets a bad precedent for how I think people should behave. I don't mind what sort of things you choose to buy or like, but I would prefer you don't waste them.
Resources of all kinds are limited, so making the most of what we have is an important principle, at least for me. Sometimes it's silly -- eg. I really should replace those old socks with holes in them, I can definitely afford new ones, but if something can do a bit more before being thrown away or replaced, I'll try and get that much more out of it.
I totally relate to waste aversion but that’s also why I feel like this particular topic seems like it brings out all kinds of weird irrational instincts. There isn’t anything wasted here, just something that affords a little extra for an incomplete set of scenarios. Sometimes it’s a little more screen space for a menu to sit a little bit higher than an equivalent spec screen. Sometimes it’s just blank space with no backlight, and the remaining screen area is the same as if you never had the space to begin with. Maybe you can make better use of that space, but I’d put good odds on it being overall more wasteful to expend those resources (human and everything their efforts demand) than just waiting a few more years until the notch vanishes behind its inevitable under-screen evolution.
It can be kind of irrational. If toothpaste waste is important to you, there are better ways to avoid it. My local no-packaging store, for example, sells toothpaste tablets, completely without plastic or packaging of any kind (and I'm sure you could buy something similar online in bulk with minimal packaging).
The effect on waste production that using the last few drops of every toothpaste tube will be negligible compared to the use of a waste-free or waste-minimising alternative, but I get the impression that a lot of people do the former without trying the latter out of a misplaced sense of utility.
I’m reasonably sure that arguing about leftover toothpaste on the internet does more damage to the environment than leaving trace amounts of toothpaste in its tube.
Argument about toothpaste on a public forum is not about toothpaste. Positive result of such argument is not one person buying less toothpaste but many more becoming aware about wastefulness and how mindless consumption and buying stuff in environmentally harmful packaging and not using it all (and therefore making yourself buy more) causes a lot of harm when everyone does it etc.
Besides, you are using the term "trace amounts" wrong. The amounts people routinely leave are enough for at least a week of toothbrushing.
I don't always buy food in bulk to save on cost, or look for the best deals, but whatever I have bought I try my best not to waste. It's irresponsible. Maybe in some ways I feel it's bad for the environment, or sets a bad precedent for how I think people should behave. I don't mind what sort of things you choose to buy or like, but I would prefer you don't waste them.
Resources of all kinds are limited, so making the most of what we have is an important principle, at least for me. Sometimes it's silly -- eg. I really should replace those old socks with holes in them, I can definitely afford new ones, but if something can do a bit more before being thrown away or replaced, I'll try and get that much more out of it.