Ain't no one got the money to afford the real thing, and influencers keep throwing the real thing into our faces.
Dupes took over the world
11–20 of 137 posts
Re: Dupes took over the world
#12For the vast majority of human existence 'dupe culture' was the norm. So far this is just a tiny 200 year abberation.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Centralization offers efficiency gains, else it won't happen. Your imaginary company in South Korea likely makes a million horseshoes employing only 1000 people, and the horseshoes are good quality, and the price is like 5% of the price of a handcrafted horseshoe. Many more people can afford horseshoes as a result.
Re: Dupes took over the world
#13With decreasing quality of branded products, there's less to distinguish them from dupes. https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/
Yup, need a new term like reputation hacking to use a good reputation to sell lower quality products or increase prices, sometimes from a new owner.
Re: Dupes took over the world
#14For the vast majority of human existence 'dupe culture' was the norm. So far this is just a tiny 200 year abberation.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Well, the guy who invented the horseshoe died thousands of years ago.
And the idea that one location making all the horseshoes means each village is minus one living is ignoring the other effects.
Now, all the villagers can get cheaper horseshoes, so they don’t have to spend as many resources on shoes for their horses, and can now invest more into what their village is best at, and sell those goods to other villages.
Basic Ricardian Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardian_economics
Of course, that doesn’t mean the blacksmith isn’t out of a job, but I always hate that so many people think the solution to that problem is to just give up the economic benefits of specialization instead of working to improve the distribution of the gains.
Re: Dupes took over the world
#15With decreasing quality of branded products, there's less to distinguish them from dupes. https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/
Sports jerseys are funny- they've gotten to the point where the dupes are cheaper AND higher quality (eg embroidered instead of cheap iron-on patches)
Re: Dupes took over the world
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Centralization offers efficiency gains, else it won't happen. Your imaginary company in South Korea likely makes a million horseshoes employing only 1000 people, and the horseshoes are good quality, and the price is like 5% of the price of a handcrafted horseshoe. Many more people can afford horseshoes as a result.
But think of the jobs! There used to be a million people involved in horseshoe-making, now there is only a thousand, and the rest of that million now has to do something else! And since there is literally nothing else for them to do, they'll have to die out :(
The most bizarre thing about the economical systems is that there indeed were cases where former workers of the industries that collapsed/disappeared indeed went the way of the dodo.
Re: Dupes took over the world
#17Fender makes dupes of its iconic instruments. If someone said, making dupes of Fender guitars is Fender's core business, I wouldn't argue.
There's an ongoing lawsuit with another guitar maker who essentially is claimng something like the fender guitar body is basically independently / evolutionarily the only good body style and that there's a convergence and so it's like trying to patent the shape of a saxophone or violin
Re: Dupes took over the world
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Well, the guy who invented the horseshoe died thousands of years ago. And the idea that one location making all the horseshoes means each village is minus one living is ignoring the other effects. Now, all the villagers can get cheaper horseshoes, so they don’t have to spend as many resources on shoes for their horses, and can now invest more into what their village is best at, and sell those goods to other villages.…
I've come to view the goal of things being cheap as an anti goal. The biggest contribution to us speed running killing our ecosystems. Maybe all of us going without more often would end up with a significantly higher standard of living in the long term.
Re: Dupes took over the world
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Centralization offers efficiency gains, else it won't happen. Your imaginary company in South Korea likely makes a million horseshoes employing only 1000 people, and the horseshoes are good quality, and the price is like 5% of the price of a handcrafted horseshoe. Many more people can afford horseshoes as a result.
[deleted]
Re: Dupes took over the world
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
Centralization offers efficiency gains, else it won't happen. Your imaginary company in South Korea likely makes a million horseshoes employing only 1000 people, and the horseshoes are good quality, and the price is like 5% of the price of a handcrafted horseshoe. Many more people can afford horseshoes as a result.
Many fewer people can afford horseshoes as a result because all the money is at the horseshoe company.