Obviously not the main point, but I've been reading watch media online for over a decade now, I've read or heard this "Quartz Crisis" story hundreds of times and never ONCE read about the coincidence with the Bretton Woods agreement. Makes sense though, its basically oral history.
The Brand Age
51–60 of 403 posts
Re: The Brand Age
#52Somebody's getting into watch collecting! Quartz watches were also developed in Switzerland: check out the story of the Beta: https://goldammer.me/blogs/articles/beta-21-history-guide
Re: The Brand Age
#53I watched the Macbook Neo launch video yesterday and while the product is not very exciting, the video has great production value and it showed this: People want to pay for marketing.
Not that Apple's only appeal is marketing, Mac laptops certainly have pros over the bottom and mid tier Windows laptops. But having seen that video, and knowing that other have seen it, are aware of Apple and its positioning, makes people feel better while using and owning their devices.
People absolutely want that feeling and they're willing to pay for it.
Re: The Brand Age
#54I'm struck by the utilitarian mindset of this essay. What Paul so disparagingly refers to as "brand" can also be referred to as "art". People _want_ art, and will indeed pay good money for it. Said differently, people _value_ art enough to differentiate it from "optimal design", and indeed a subset of people will pay top dollar for a suboptimal but artistic design.
It is possible to view the fact that capitalist markets can turn a desire for art, individuality, and "something special" into a business as a bad thing. I'm not entirely convinced that's particularly interesting, though... it seems just a localized restatement of a generic "capitalism is bad" take.
Re: The Brand Age
#55" Because at Patek he'd encounter the most extreme brand age phenomenon: artificial scarcity. You can't just buy a Nautilus. You have to spend years proving your loyalty first by buying your way through multiple tiers of other models, and then spend years on a waiting list. " Strange game, the only winning move is not to play. I've heard other brands do this (Ferrari?) and, of course, there are lines outside "luxury"…
Anyone with $(80,00-250,000) (which is a lot of you) can buy a Nautilus today[1]. This status-through-martyrdom ritual to get it from retail at MSRP is utterly bizarre. [1] https://www.chrono24.com/patekphilippe/nautilus--mod106.htm
Holy shit that's an ugly watch too, looks like something outta chinatown lmao.
Re: The Brand Age
#56Because he focuses in the story of luxury watches, Graham sees only the brand tricks that work mostly for rich people.
There are brands for non-rich: Linux is a very strong brand but virtually free and non-exclusive at all (think Android phones). Patriotism and country reputation might also be thought as brands. E.g. would Portugal's tourist boom happen without the Portuguese tarts popularity?
Edit: my watch is a Pebble.
Re: The Brand Age
#57I can't respond to tzury's comment because it's already flagged and dead but I honestly don't think that's quite fair on this board. The very same people who would be flagging that comment wouldn't bat an eye at saying they won't read or support anything by folks like DHH, or a hundred other prominent tech figures who have committed some ideological-wrong. It's just a similarly heavy-handed reaction from the other si…
The very same people who would be flagging that comment wouldn't bat an eye at saying they won't read or support anything by folks like… First off, you might be right for some small number of cases, but I’d flag any and all rants such as this, regardless of the target. Off-topic, and doesn’t contribute to the conversation. Second, for those as you describe, when they go off on an off-topic rant about DHH, someone els…
There is not a single discussion on this board about DHH that doesn't get overrun with posts about what people think about the guy, regardless of the posts' topic.
Re: The Brand Age
#58"When our time traveler peered into the windows of these shops, the first thing he'd notice was how large all the watches were."
My only question about this entire essay is... where did this time traveler came from???
"Our" time traveler was never mentioned until this line.
Re: The Brand Age
#59I can't respond to tzury's comment because it's already flagged and dead but I honestly don't think that's quite fair on this board. The very same people who would be flagging that comment wouldn't bat an eye at saying they won't read or support anything by folks like DHH, or a hundred other prominent tech figures who have committed some ideological-wrong. It's just a similarly heavy-handed reaction from the other si…
You've got enough karma to click [vouch] on the comment if you think it shouldn't be dead. It's a bit of a rant, and while there are good points, they're lost in an emotional diatribe and, I mean, I feel for them, but I can also see why it was marked dead.
I did click vouch, but I also still stick by what I said because I see all sorts of personal, emotional crusades against various tech figures reposted, signal-boosted, amplified, etc. on this board. I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm just asking people to pause and think about what the comments would look like if this were in response to some other characters...
Re: The Brand Age
#60“Why is the Patek Philippe Nautilus so expensive?”
If you have to explain why your product is expensive, maybe it shouldn’t be.