121–130 of 403 posts
" 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"…
Software. everyone can do it now. but you still buy lets say Crowdstrike for security, because is in your brain for years as security software.
>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…
It looks like an Aliexpress Timex.
His point of Omega doubling-down on the things that would progressively harder to establish a moat on made me think about what we have been seeing with higher ed. It seems the "smart ones" definitely read the book that making the "education better," in a world where it is mostly free, was a fool's errand, and now the margins that they all compete it stray far, far away from the quality of the schooling. I work in K-1…
yeah they were force merged with ETA, longines, Hamilton and eterna, which basically dominated the swiss watch industry .
Patek Phillipe was all about just being expensive with other people's movements. They were the balenciaga of watches (subjective view point there.)
I 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 peop…
Apple clearly positions themselves as a premium product. There is some luxury element to it to (e.g., my friends will look down on me if I have an android), but it's not really the same as a true luxury product where brand is the main thing you are paying for. If you offered to sell me a macbook for 25% cheapr on condition that I remove the branding, I'd be happy to do so. I'm not a watch person, but I suspect that m…
Macbook Neo customers want Apple to put out creative product marketing videos, they believe it is part of the offer.
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So, hobbies. You're talking about hobbies.
I have several hobbies, and none of them revolve around artifical scarcity or gatekeeping. (Well, the way that _some_ people play Magic: The Gathering does - but I wouldn't want to play with anyone who raised a stink about proxies)
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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!
" 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"…
What a tired aphorism. Just like PG's 50 year old insights.
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The movement isn't part of the brand. It's not part of the signal. The case/dial/sometimes band are the brand. And if you couldn't tell them apart, they wouldn't be any good at signaling, the entire point of wearing them.
> movement isn't part of the brand. It's not part of the signal. The case/dial/sometimes band are the brand The movement was the expensive part. Audemars, Vacheron and Patek only made movements. The retailer would then put it in a case. That’s the entire point of PG’s essay. > if you couldn't tell them apart, they wouldn't be any good at signaling, the entire point of wearing them Which might lead you to revise your…
I don't think thats really true, Audemars & Patek deffo made entire watches in the 50s.
Don't get me wrong they also designed movements, but by the time of the quartz crisis, Patek bought in movements from outside.
It doesn't really help that omega and tissolt were merged with Certina, ETA, hamilton when then turned into swatch, which basically dominates the entire swiss watch industry along with rolex and richemont(who own Vacheron)
* https://bookshop.org/p/books/no-logo-no-space-no-choice-no-j...