[HN Gopher] The Rise of Influencer Capital
___________________________________________________________________
The Rise of Influencer Capital
Author : marban
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-11-14 08:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nymag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nymag.com)
| paulusthe wrote:
| This is only tangentially related, but this article reminds me of
| Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" which should frankly be
| required reading for undergrad social sciences. In it, he argues
| that, at the time of writing (late 50s), the industrialized West
| has largely solved what had previously been the main
| preoccupation of economics - improved standard of living. As
| evidence, Galbraith points to advertising.
|
| The argument is simple: when important productivity improvements
| take place, say the invention of a new way of baking bread, they
| don't need advertising to gain mass use. Their benefits are so
| obvious that they don't need to be sold. Demand doesn't have to
| be created, because demand comes from human existence.
|
| The existence of advertising, in contrast, shows that the thing
| being advertised probably isn't that important. Indeed, the item
| is so trivial as to require advertising to create demand for it.
| This then leads us to wonder what benefit is being served by both
| creating this product and the demand for it; Galbraith argues
| that we've essentially fetishized economic growth at all costs (a
| holdover, in his view, from the early days of econ which was
| concerned with our metaphorical bread making instead of our
| metaphorical advertised widget making). He then attacks planned
| obsolescence as the dumbest outcrop of this process, because now
| we're purposefully wasting materials on things which we hope to
| replace in the near future for no reason other than to keep
| making the things, things which we don't need anyway - as
| evidenced by the fact that they're advertised.
|
| Anyway I think this fits in perfectly with the whole influencer
| economy phenomenon, because that's literally all they do. Their
| raison d'etre is to generate demand for items nobody needs or
| even previously knew about.
| pphysch wrote:
| I _strongly_ disagree with Galbraith 's argument essentially
| about "the end of quality". We did not reach an absolute zenith
| of product quality in the 50s.
|
| What did change was the coverage of mass media.
|
| Instead of relying on long and expensive genuine user feedback
| loops to generate positive buzz around a product, advertising
| manufactures that buzz directly. This is why is it everywhere,
| and influencers are just the latest innovation. Not because
| product quality/QoL reached a high point.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > What did change was the coverage of mass media
|
| That and the shift toward psychological advertising in the
| wake of Bernays. Closing the quality/opinion loop only makes
| sense if quality is really a concern. Post-Bernays the gig
| switched to manufacturing desire by attacking the self-esteem
| of the "consumer". The product itself became largely
| irrelevant.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| > I strongly disagree with Galbraith's argument essentially
| about "the end of quality". We did not reach a zenith of
| product quality in the 50s.
|
| As someone who actively seeks tools, furniture and other
| consumer products from that period, I tend to disagree.
|
| Let's take furniture. Mine was made during this period by
| Stickley in New York state. One cannot find commensurate
| quality today unless you wish to commission handmade pieces.
|
| We have devolved to the point of disposable $5 extruded-
| plastic chairs, which may provide service for a time, knowing
| full well that the inevitable trip to the landfill is just
| around the corner. I reckon we're a ways past said zenith.
| mkl wrote:
| This seems like survivor bias. The 1950s furniture and
| tools that still exist are obviously well-made and have
| been considered worth preserving by decades of people.
| Karrot_Kream has good points about materials too.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Yes, plastics hadn't been invented yet and there were still
| enough forests around to deforest that furniture could
| economically be made out of large chunks of solid wood.
| Nowadays, forestry requirements in most developed countries
| have (understandably) become tighter and it makes more
| sense to use less wood to make engineered wood products to
| build furniture than solid wood. Engineered wood products
| last a long time but still less than solid wood.
|
| Also, when new, a lot of old furniture was quite expensive
| and families would save up for pieces. We get the benefit
| of that being used and transmitted now (though obviously
| particularly striking pieces will not have a reduction in
| value.)
|
| While I certainly appreciate older, sturdy furniture
| (especially solid wood furniture as someone with some
| cabinetry background), I prefer modern lightweight
| materials, even if they last less long. They still last
| most of my lifetime which is enough for me. Marketing is
| not the issue, sustainable materials usage is.
| pphysch wrote:
| I agree with you -- let me rephrase -- we may have hit a
| relative peak in quality in the 1950s, but not anything
| resembling an absolute limit that _caused_ advertising.
|
| The subsequent decline in product quality was _caused by_
| advertising displacing genuine user feedback in creating
| demand for products, among other things (planned
| obsolescence).
|
| You no longer needed to create a great product that people
| would buy and recommend because it is great. Simply skip
| the loop and go straight from A to B via advertising (fake
| buzz).
|
| The Galbraith argument that advertising was a necessary
| technology that benefits consumers is a Big Lie.
| Advertising benefits large producers, while consumers
| suffer from losing their voice and declining product
| quality.
| beambot wrote:
| Our house was made in the 1950s using California redwood.
| Design aside, this product quality is impossible today; you
| simply cannot find old-growth redwood to construct
| sufficient housing. I'm not even sure it was justifiable to
| utilize those materials during that era either -- hence the
| mass exploitation of global resources that is precipitating
| ecological collapse today.
|
| There's clearly a cost-benefit spectrum between artisanal
| craftsmanship & throwaway consumerism. Balance is probably
| the best approach. It's time for the pendulum to swing back
| toward fewer, better items with a longer product life.
| tinalumfoil wrote:
| _If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have
| said faster horses_
|
| There was genuine skepticism over the horseless carriage when
| it was first becoming available. Vaccines wouldn't be in
| widespread today use if significant money and resources weren't
| spent convincing people of their safety. Lots and lot of useful
| technological innovations requires advertising before people
| were convinced to use them.
| ctoth wrote:
| You know, I often see this faster horses thing quoted to
| point at how dumb consumers are. Wouldn't you agree, however,
| that a car which doesn't drive itself home after you've had a
| bit too many drinks at the local saloon is a downgrade? A car
| which doesn't graze its own food is a downgrade? A car which
| doesn't automatically make more cars is a downgrade? Perhaps
| if someone had figured out 'faster horses' sooner we wouldn't
| have literally millions of people dead from car crashes.
| Perhaps we wouldn't have an atomized society with little
| social interaction.
|
| It seems to me that once people know that something exists,
| which is possible through way more methods than the constant
| cognitive assault of our advertising-based culture, then they
| can do just fine at figuring out if the thing is useful to
| them.
|
| But yeah, keep gloating about how dumb people are for not
| just wanting a better version of what works.
| notriddle wrote:
| Horses are much more expensive to own than cars. You can't
| just leave them sitting in a lot for 20 out of 24 hours a
| day, they only feed themselves if you're living out in the
| middle of the prairie, and you can't just replace a broken
| leg.
|
| If horses are more "pro-social" than cars, it's because the
| only people who could afford them are the very wealthy and
| people who made their living riding horses like cowboys and
| taxi drivers. Cars are "worse" than horses because they're
| too superior, which means the middle class all own personal
| cars and have stopped financing public transit and
| pedestrian-friendly city layout that the lower classes
| would coincidentally benefit from.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| My car doesn't die if I don't attend to it for 2 weeks. If
| my car breaks its "leg" I can swap it out, I don't have to
| shoot the poor thing. My car can't get me in trouble for
| grazing in my neighbor's pasture. If horses traveled at car
| speeds, I doubt death counts would be any lower, and you'd
| have to figure in the number of horse deaths too.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If horses traveled at car speeds they would refuse to do
| so when it is unsafe. The same way you won't knowingly
| run full speed down a ice covered street.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Faster horses would still leave our streets full of horse
| manure. "Grazing their own food" doesn't work in a dense
| urban environment. You're cherry-picking the upsides of the
| old way, but there were some pretty significant downsides.
| anxiously wrote:
| Fair enough, but there's a huge gap between vaccines and
| products like Raid Shadow Legends and Snuggies.
| wellareyousure wrote:
| vkou wrote:
| > Lots and lot of useful technological innovations requires
| advertising before people were convinced to use them.
|
| Fortunately, we have had a parallel universe, called the
| Soviet Union, where advertising was more limited (but still
| present, of course), and as anyone who lived there will tell
| you, nobody there needed to be convinced by advertising that
| they _wanted_ a car, or a fridge, or a color television.
| tonymet wrote:
| this assumes humans are capable of understanding the value of
| things. They aren't and values shift over time. advertising
| helps to inform and influence these changing values
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Why do humans need advertising to understand the value of
| things?
|
| I'd agree with you if your statement was more along the lines
| of, "people may not know that widget X exists and solves
| their problem well." But that's wholly different from
| understanding the value of things.
| tonymet wrote:
| People aren't rational, they lack awareness, and even when
| they are aware of a new behavior they are hesitant to
| change behavior unless there are significant signals from
| media & peers that the new behavior will bring value .
|
| Besides all of this, the cognitive load of being aware of
| every possible new behavior, activity and product in the
| world would be overwhelming.
|
| I'm not advocating for more advertising (i live somewhat of
| an ascetic lifestyle myself), nor soft or hard paternalism.
| But assuming people will be able to discover and adopt high
| value behaviors without advertising (or other outside
| influence) is preposterous.
| olalonde wrote:
| > He then attacks planned obsolescence as the dumbest outcrop
| of this process,
|
| Planned obsolescence is an economic myth. There is very little
| evidence that it actually exists in the real world, unless you
| are really willing to stretch the definition. It's just not
| possible to successfully pull it off in a competitive market.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Very little evidence, you say? Well, here you go.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
|
| PS "not possible to pull it off in a competitive market" is
| not a meaningful statement. The fact that it _is_ possible to
| pull off _implies_ it 's not a competitive market already.
| olalonde wrote:
| That's probably the most successful cartel in history and
| was largely assisted by government through basic lightbulb
| patents granted to GE. It lasted about half a decade before
| it started falling apart due to external competition. I'm
| not saying no one will attempt to form cartels or engineer
| planned obsolescence, just that it isn't sustainable from
| an economic standpoint.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I see you're ready for the advanced course. Here's the
| continuation of that history:
| https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-planned-
| obsolescence/ Planned obsolescence through advertising is
| still planned obsolescence.
|
| TL;DR: It happened. They did it on purpose, that purpose
| being to make more money.
| olalonde wrote:
| > Planned obsolescence through advertising is still
| planned obsolescence.
|
| No, it's not. It's also a pretty elitist/condescending
| view of the American people, as if they are passive
| victims incapable of discerning what's good for them.
| Might as well do away with democracy while we're at it.
| svachalek wrote:
| I guess "selling things that will wear out soon even though
| it wouldn't be hard to make better ones that last way longer"
| is stretching the definition? Because that's everywhere.
| olalonde wrote:
| Yes, it's stretching the definition. The fact that
| consumers are buying plenty of things that will wear out
| soon is not evidence of planned obsolescence. It is
| evidence that consumers prefer those products over those
| that last longer (probably because they are cheaper).
| Eupraxias wrote:
| You're assuming that the intelligence of a consumer of
| well designed products is at parity with that of a
| consumer of cheap products.
|
| You're also assuming that the critical mass of people
| have enough money to choose.
| olalonde wrote:
| No, I'm not making those assumptions. Can you elaborate?
| WalterBright wrote:
| People aren't willing to pay more for things that last
| longer.
| Arrath wrote:
| Individuals are. I buy more expensive boots knowing
| they'll last longer. Communities like the BuyItForLife or
| the Frugral subreddits discuss products and durability.
|
| A large enough cohort of consumers to influence
| manufacturers aren't doing so, unfortunately.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| There is no strong incentive for companies to make products
| that last longer than a certain period of time, so they put
| no effort into it. I think that's really what people are
| calling "planned obsolescence." I think "unplanned
| obsolescence" would be a more accurate term. I really doubt
| any companies have teams of engineers tasked specifically
| with reducing product longevity.
| fhd2 wrote:
| Companies evolve whatever strategies work best to extract
| the highest amount of consumer dollars at the lowest
| cost. I also doubt most of them have specific goals to
| make their products worse, but brand power, walled
| gardens, monopolies and cartels let them get away with
| quite a few tricks that _end up_ making them worse.
| blululu wrote:
| This seems like a pretty strong claim given that 4 billion
| Android phones are made each year with <2 years of kernel
| support. Where are you even getting this from?
| olalonde wrote:
| Again, this is a misunderstanding of what planned
| obsolescence means. Supporting software costs money. The
| longer the support offered, the higher the cost of the
| phone. A line has to be drawn: a reasonable duration that
| doesn't increase the cost of the phone by too much. That
| line is ultimately driven by consumer preferences.
|
| Planned obsolescence would be setting a timer on the phone
| that disables it after two years.
|
| > Where are you even getting this from?
|
| From basic economics 101 theory and empirical observation.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The assumption that markets are mostly competitive is deeply
| flawed. Markets are controlled, managed and monopolized more
| often than not, via strategies like control of chokepoints
| (computer chip production is a case example), interlocking
| boards of directors of major corporations, government
| subsidies for specific industries (and import tariffs as
| well), etc.
|
| Case example: acceptable cell phones could be produced today
| that would last for 20 years using the same internal
| structure, with decent audio/video capabilities and memory
| storage, if they were designed to be easily repairable, i.e.
| if the components that are likely to wear out could be easily
| replaced (battery, touchscreen, etc.). The operating systems
| could be locked-in to a standard format, or OS upgrades could
| be made backwards-compatible.
|
| Major phone manufacturers really are not interested in making
| such devices, because new sales would fall:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-
| investors...
|
| Where is the competitive market providing the long-lived
| alternatives?
| olalonde wrote:
| The smartphone manufacturing industry is super competitive.
| Many of the largest phone manufacturers didn't exist a
| decade ago. I guess you got a billion dollar startup idea
| in your hands, go ahead and create that phone company.
| Personally, my hunch is that you're not the first to have
| this idea and a phone like the one you described is either
| not commercially viable and/or there isn't real demand for
| a phone that lasts 20 years.
| lob_it wrote:
| Are you sure smartphones are even relevant anymore? They
| seemed to have devolved into doing everything mediocre
| and are much like a dildo/toothbrush hybrid without clear
| instructions. Dialtone 2.0 sounds like a winner already.
| The seperation of data and dialtone.
|
| And with influencer marketing, its like celebs decades
| ago harping about the health benefits of eating a
| placenta... Are you eating placentas to maintain health?
| All those vitamins and minerals... Yummy :/
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-
| deliv...
|
| Just because they invented it/said it, doesn't make it a
| good idea/product.
|
| Product evolution is already well documented. The 1767
| invention of carbonated water/soda water did not make
| large strides until 1886 and did not get HFCS until
| 1981-1984.
|
| https://www.thoughtco.com/18th-century-timeline-1992474
|
| https://thepopularlist.com/inventions-of-the-19th-
| century/
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/07/the-secret-
| history-...
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > This is only tangentially related, but this article reminds
| me of Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" which should frankly
| be required reading for undergrad social sciences.
|
| Oh? What ideological indoctrination does it provide?
|
| > In it, he argues that, at the time of writing (late 50s), the
| industrialized West has largely solved what had previously been
| the main preoccupation of economics - improved standard of
| living. As evidence, Galbraith points to advertising.
|
| Oh right, taking the stated goals of an established field which
| has been central in the shaping of modern nation states at face
| value--its advertising.
|
| It's not social science but I find the narrative of _The
| Century of the Self_ to be convincing. It makes a lot more
| sense to sell things by way of manipulation than it does by
| just stating facts.
|
| But then you ask, why manipulate instead of just selling things
| that people more or less organically want? Because the economy
| has to grow. Into infinity. Is this a controversial point to
| make? And further, what is the current iteration of capitalism
| called? Consumer capitalism. It is not merely a culture of
| consumption since the system itself is built on consumption.
| syrrim wrote:
| There was a commentary somewhere that while someone in france
| had discovered the cure to smallpox in the form of variolation,
| the king of france was dying of it. The reason he died was not
| because no cure existed, but because his doctors weren't aware
| of it and thus didn't know to apply it. The spread of knowledge
| is not magical. It will happen over time, but in that time
| knowledge will be lost. Variations of variolation have been
| used for thousands of years, but smallpox was only eradicated
| after galbraith wrote his book. The application of capital to
| the spread of useful knowledge can still happen even when the
| knowledge ought to be obvious and important to everyone that
| encounters it.
| aikendrum wrote:
| The issue with this is that advertisements don't exist to
| answer a question, or provide useful information. They exist
| to sell a product - whose efficacy, usefulness or
| appropriateness to the buyer is orthogonal to the
| effectiveness of the advertisement. Anything can be
| advertised, from a crooked demagogue to a placebo herbal
| remedy. The only difference is the budget and the regulation.
| Advertising is not about the spread of knowledge, it's about
| the promotion of a good or service that's being sold, period.
| skybrian wrote:
| Although some advertising is fairly useless or harmful,
| this ignores a lot of gray areas. For example, companies
| write interesting and useful blogs to both inform people
| and sell product.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Sure but do we need a push or pull based model. Ads are
| pushed into our attention. Google searches and "research" are
| pull based. If you solve the pull based model the king's
| doctor just looks it up, discovers something exists, and
| obtains the treatment.
|
| Recommendations are similar to ads in this regard as well.
| Maybe blurring the lines between the two depending on how the
| algo is designed. I'd personally be in favor of
| recommendation type approaches with combinations of human
| curation, and an adjustable spectrum of push/pull based
| results; and the ability to swap between these on a whim as
| needed.
| muffinman26 wrote:
| I'd argue that you definitely need a push-based model for
| preventative measures: vaccines, smoke detectors, Personal
| Protective Equipment to reduce the spread of disease.
|
| If you don't know how serious a danger is, you won't start
| doing research on it until it actually occurs, at which
| point it is too late. It doesn't do much good to remind
| someone they need to have smoke detectors and check them
| regularly _after_ the house burns down, or that a vaccine
| is available after they 're infected.
| xenonite wrote:
| On the creator side, it is not so easy. If I think that
| someone is interested in my knowledge or product, I will
| write a book or produce it. But it only comes available
| until it lands in some shelf where it can be found. Hence,
| this is a push.
|
| Alternatively, I could have waited until someone noticed my
| advertisement to start to write the book or produce the
| product. Pull.
|
| So where is push and where is pull better?
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| I wasn't looking at this through the lens of creating
| content but rather starting from the point you "land in
| some shelf where it can be found". From this point it's
| about getting customers/audience which is where push/pull
| comes into play.
|
| I see ads as purely a push based model; to the GP point,
| if it was worth looking for why wouldn't you already be
| looking for it via a pull based method. But you obviously
| don't know what you don't know. Either 100% push or 100%
| pull won't be optimal. This is where I see
| recommendations and being able to swap between a spectrum
| of XX% push and YY% pull algos is helpful.
|
| For example physical music, i can walk into a record
| store and decide to buy a handful of records; the store
| owner can then see those records and recommend more that
| I could also enjoy and even ask me questions to make
| those more accurate. This isn't 100% push or pull and
| also has an element of human curation that inherently
| doesn't scale but is possibly the most effective
| approach. I can do the same thing online via discogs and
| get some automated recommendations. I have a choice
| between the two and depending if it's a genre I'm
| familiar with (human recommendation might give me
| something new) or a new one I'm trying to explore (most
| popular records recommended by discogs are a good
| starting point) i can choose one or the other.
|
| I see solving this problem as a key one for the whole
| creator long-tail, 1k fans, etc... problem-space. Don't
| have the answers but those are some general ideas.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Similar thesis with Goodburn, Klien, Rumpfhuber Till - "The
| Design of Scarcity". A short, kooky but enjoyable read.
| baxtr wrote:
| Interestingly enough you are spreading word about his work on
| social media to people (incl. myself) who have not heard about
| him. I wonder if that makes you an influencer.
| sublinear wrote:
| I agree with the general observation that "needs" are a more
| powerful means of making a sale. Advertising tends to focus on
| "wants".
|
| Yet, at the huge risk of getting downvoted into oblivion isn't
| rejecting "wants" as a legitimate source of growth a bit
| Marxist? If the economy only served needs and not wants we
| would be living in a very bleak and oppressive world.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Hasn't advertising been around since way before the 50s? But
| anyways, I think the capitalist society cannot keep churning
| unless there are new products/services being created
| regularly...the whole thing is like a house of cards. If
| production slow down, people lose jobs, no disposable income,
| consumption goes down, etc...
| Radim wrote:
| And the remedy (if you believe the status quo needs a remedy)
| is right in the closing sentence of the article:
|
| > _The promoters want our attention more than our cash._
|
| Try to avoid mass media, minimize exposure to advertising,
| question externally imposed values. Our human status-seeking
| rat race is real, but individual degree of participation
| optional.
|
| (I say "optional" but it may be in the same category as "simply
| choose to stop shooting heroin", for some psychological
| profiles, I realize.)
|
| Even here on HN I see comments celebrating that culture of
| _demand-generation driven innovations_ , apparently the staple
| of progress in our society. Without which value discovery would
| collapse overnight. As if inventing a car was on the same level
| as producing a bottle of Clooney's Casamigo. Which is what the
| OP is really about, it's a lengthy but fairly focused article.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| There are two kinds of advertising. One is a grocery store
| putting signs in the windows that say "Fresh cantaloupes, 99
| cents". This was back when food was seasonal. People knew what
| cantaloupes were, but may have kind of forgotten about them,
| because it's been nearly a year since they could get them. So
| the store advertises that they have cantaloupes. This
| advertising just says "we have this thing".
|
| Now think of Coke and Pepsi ads from during the "cola wars"
| era, or beer ads from a wider era. It's all about cool people
| and beautiful women, and you're supposed to think that maybe
| you could be cool like that and have a girl like that if you
| drank that. It has nothing to do with the properties of what's
| being sold; it's all about image.
|
| The first kind of advertising is what you see when things are
| scarce; the second you see when things are abundant.
|
| I don't have a problem with the first kind of advertising.
| planetsprite wrote:
| You'd have to be naive to assume the standard of living in
| Western countries today is comparable to how it was in the
| 1950s.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I agree with you, but if you actually polled people on this
| issue you would perhaps be surprised how naive the US
| populace generally is.
| mc32 wrote:
| The critique of advertising rings some bells; however, planned
| obsolescence is not always a bad thing because the advances in
| new versions might outweigh the energy necessary to produce a
| better version.
|
| So something like a bread toaster probably suffers from planned
| obsolescence; LCDs (or generic display technology) likely
| benefit from planned obsolescence.
|
| Before Telecommunications deregulation everyone had pretty much
| the same telephone that was leased from the phone co. It was
| electromechanical with sizeable transformers and magnets in
| there. Compare that to the sets that were available after
| deregulation with miniaturized components.
|
| Basically it's not always cut and dried and there is nuance
| especially when it comes to energy efficiency. On the other
| hand, it's really annoying to buy kitchen appliances that are
| poorly manufactured.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| > planned obsolescence is not always a bad thing
|
| To whom? We now have floating islands of plastic from
| obsolescent devices. That plastic blender I bought 3 years
| ago is now in the trash heap. My mother's blender she bought
| 40 years ago is still going. Obsolescence is terrible for the
| environment in the entire lifecycle of a product. In my
| opinion, obsolescence are rarely good for the society, never
| good for the customer. It is only good for the manufacturer.
|
| > Before Telecommunications deregulation everyone had pretty
| much the same telephone that was leased from the phone co. It
| was electromechanical with sizeable transformers and magnets
| in there. Compare that to the sets that were available after
| deregulation with miniaturized components.
|
| Just to be clear, are you suggesting that deregulation
| brought in the "not always bad" obsolescence? I know it
| brought innovation and customer choice, but can you unpack
| further how it brought obsolescence?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| It took me a while reflecting on engineering and design
| practice to come around to understanding planned
| obsolescence as a potentially positive thing.
|
| Imagine designing a very high quality metal chain. However,
| some of the links need to be made of an inferior strength
| plastic, perhaps to stop them corroding. It's therefore not
| worth designing the rest of the chain to a higher tensile
| quality than the weakest links. To do so would actually be
| very wasteful.
|
| One must distinguish genuine design efficiency, which is a
| kind of designed obsolescence, from strategic sabotage.
| That's what most digital goods contain; remote kill
| switches, countdown timers, deliberate weak fuses, remote
| updates that remove features, embedded DRM and all manner
| of user-hostile shitfuckery that amounts to no more than
| vandalism.
| mc32 wrote:
| At the end of my comment I carved out an exception for
| kitchen appliances as they are notoriously ill designed.
|
| The telephone is an example of a good that improved and was
| kickstarted with deregulation before that it was WE500
| types.
| eropple wrote:
| _> That plastic blender I bought 3 years ago is now in the
| trash heap. My mother 's blender she bought 40 years ago is
| still going._
|
| Adjusted for purchasing power, how much did the former cost
| and how much did the latter cost?
| foobiekr wrote:
| The argument the poster is making isn't that garbage
| implementations aren't cheaper, it's that their
| externalities are terrible.
| feet wrote:
| Unfortunately some people only seem to consider money as
| important, all else be damned
| eropple wrote:
| Of course--that's my point. Those externalities aren't
| priced in, which is a large part of the purchasing power
| change for consumer goods over the last couple decades.
| We can start with the cost of salvage and recycling being
| priced into COGS, amortized across expected lifetime (and
| refined as data comes in--make something good that lasts
| longer, get a refund against your up-front deposit as a
| manufacturer).
|
| Sorry, I should've been more explicit in my first post.
| My bad.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Excellent question. This came up because it just died
| recently. She said the blender (really a hand mixer) cost
| $26, and she thinks she bought it 1984 or 1985. So that
| would be approximately $72 in today's US dollar.[0]
|
| I can find hand mixers online from $13 to $238 (amzn).
| Let's agree that today's mixer will last 5 years. Also,
| let's pick the price "average" at $50. That would put the
| total cost at $400. If we go with $13, it is still $104,
| and unlikely we could get 5 years out of it.
|
| So, to a customer no it is not an improvement. For the
| environment, no it is not an improvement. Correct me if I
| am wrong
|
| [0]: https://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php
| mrguyorama wrote:
| > Let's agree that today's mixer will last 5 years
|
| Why? Your entire analysis is based around this completely
| unfounded assertion. My cheap plastic kitchen appliances
| are lasting much longer than 5 years.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Mine last much less than 5 years.
| snake_plissken wrote:
| I often wonder if PPP comparisons are relevant anymore.
| What is the significance that you could buy 10 blenders
| in 2022 with $1 40 years ago in 1982? I guess its
| meaningful because you didn't have the buy a new blender
| every few years. But what happens to all of the old
| blenders being replaced?
| astrange wrote:
| Isn't most of the plastic in oceans from fishing nets?
| Landfills aren't all that much of a problem.
| technotony wrote:
| This was a real trend, but it's not going to survive the current
| collapse in VC valuations. It's all well and good selling a
| puffed up valuation on capital in a bull market but now investors
| care about profits and fundementals again and most of these
| businesses aren't designed for that world. RIP.
| seydor wrote:
| > These influencers are taking over an increasingly large slice
| of promotional budgets
|
| Here is what people have been asking for. Instead of tracking
| people and invading their privacy, real life becomes ads. Better?
| macawfish wrote:
| The squeaky wheel has always gotten the grease though hasn't it?
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| > In terms of bang for your buck, influencers have quickly become
| the gold standard for marketing products and creating fast
| wealth.
|
| I had a personal frustration with the moniker "influencer",
| because I am pretending I am not influenced. Harrumph.
|
| But, indeed they influence and if I take step back, it is the
| most appropriate name for these marketers. Whatever they push, be
| it shampoo, bourbon, or politics, they are _just advertisements_
| ; fancy billboards; placard (sandwich board) man; and now the
| "influencer".
| _manifold wrote:
| The thing that bugs me about "influencers" is that it seems in
| a lot of cases the content is formulated as a host for ads and
| monetization, rather than the creator focusing on creating
| worthwhile content first with advertising as a secondary
| concern (in a lot of cases non-endemically.)
|
| Obviously, what is considered "worthwhile" is entirely
| subjective - people wouldn't be following, say, Kylie Jenner on
| social media if they didn't see some sort of value in it. Also
| I'm pretty sure a lot of people just don't care about being
| advertised to, or even enjoy it, if it's in a niche that they
| follow.
|
| To me, it feels more insidious, especially when the line blurs
| between what is and ad and what is not. I hate being marketed
| to in such a way that it is so interleaved with the "actual"
| content - it starts making me question the validity of the
| content. By example, I used to browse Pinterest every now and
| again (mostly as a time waster) - it was interesting to search
| certain keywords and save things that looked interesting or
| sparked my curiosity. There were ads spaced every several
| tiles, but in general they seemed more or less separated from
| user-submitted content. Now, there are ads seemingly every
| third or fourth tile, and many "normal" tiles are ads as well,
| submitted by corporate accounts. I've pretty much stopped using
| it entirely.
| Underphil wrote:
| The key for me is being able to spot when it's happening and
| either ignore it or (better still) click away.
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