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The Brand Age

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Brand Age

#101

Post by coldtea »

jvanderbot wrote: post #62
julianpye wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in many cases it is for social KPI storytelling. I know some wealthy people and at gatherings they love to tell 5-10min long stories of exclusive processes that they followed to gain something exclusive while dropping names and numbers. The processes are easy to understand for the entire social circle (i.e. not technical or business achievements which they can't easily disclose).

So, hobbies. You're talking about hobbies.

No, he talks about status signalling.

They might pass the time doing those things, but not as a mere passtime or hobby, like if they were sewing or playing CoD. Unlike those, doing them and telling about doing them serves a specific social purpose.

Re: The Brand Age

#102

Post by marcosdumay »

davidw wrote: post #64
jgrahamc wrote: post #14

" 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"…

Economists have a term for these kinds of things where the demand rises as prices rise: Veblen goods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Buying unnecessary expensive stuff is one thing. But it's hard to understand why anybody would want to display that total loyalty to a brand signal.

Re: The Brand Age

#103

Post by AnotherGoodName »

candiddevmike wrote: post #85
kridsdale1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More and more I realize I am completely obvlious to all of the class signaling happening here. I couldn't imagine spending that much on anything, let alone a watch. And I certainly wouldn't think someone wearing that did, either. I feel bad for the folks who pick up on stuff like this, that must be a heavy weight to bear constantly comparing yourself to other people.

Ironically a desire for such social signalling requires being poor enough that you believe the item is worth a vast and near unobtainable amount of money making it seem like a very impressive signal to you. That’s what makes these items desirable. As in these signals can be a sign of just how poor you are as opposed to how wealthy.

A classic case is when you observe teenager targeted status signalling trends. This can be as low value as an expensive shirt, ie shirts branded ‘supreme’ costing $300 which isn’t worth signalling to anyone who pays rent or a mortgage. But to a teenager? Wow man $300! such status!!! On the flip side if we see someone above teenager age wearing such teenager targeted status symbols we reasonably subconsciously assume they live with their parents and have very little income.

This continues up the wealth chain forever. Status symbols are invariably a way to see just how little people actually have because the person wearing the status symbol clearly believes the value of what they are flaunting is impressive.

Status symbols aren’t a signal of how much money you have so much as signal of what you believe to be an incredible amount of wealth to flaunt.

Re: The Brand Age

#104

Post by coldtea »

candiddevmike wrote: post #85
kridsdale1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More and more I realize I am completely obvlious to all of the class signaling happening here. I couldn't imagine spending that much on anything, let alone a watch. And I certainly wouldn't think someone wearing that did, either. I feel bad for the folks who pick up on stuff like this, that must be a heavy weight to bear constantly comparing yourself to other people.

>I feel bad for the folks who pick up on stuff like this, that must be a heavy weight to bear constantly comparing yourself to other people.

You can have that heavy weight while living on the suburbs or even the ghetto too. The objects are prices mostly change with the wealth level, not the game.

Re: The Brand Age

#106

Post by jgrahamc »

coldtea wrote: post #99
jgrahamc wrote: post #14

" 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"…

Because the people bothering are precisely those that want to differentiate themselves from those who'd rather stick to their Casios :)

Ah, so these products are useful to me after all!

Re: The Brand Age

#108

Post by ChadNauseam »

Traster wrote: post #97

>That's not why brand age watches look strange. Brand age watches look strange because they have no practical function. Their function is to express brand, and while that is certainly a constraint, it's not the clean kind of constraint that generates good things. The constraints imposed by brand ultimately depend on some of the worst features of human psychology. So when you have a world defined only by brand, it's g…

They may be beautiful, but the fact remains if you could produce and sell Patek Philippe Nautilus for $200 no one would be interested in it. The same is not true for most other beautiful objects

Re: The Brand Age

#110

Post by rfw300 »

julianpye wrote: post #44
jgrahamc wrote: post #14

" 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"…

Actually in many cases it is for social KPI storytelling. I know some wealthy people and at gatherings they love to tell 5-10min long stories of exclusive processes that they followed to gain something exclusive while dropping names and numbers. The processes are easy to understand for the entire social circle (i.e. not technical or business achievements which they can't easily disclose).

Being wealthy solves virtually all problems of consumption, so the invisible hand provides new problems to serve the market need. Beautiful, really.
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