How Beats by Dre played you like a fool

The article's title is "How they played you like a fool" but in the article I feel like all I see are marketing gimmicks for the brand over and over.

Each item is basically a small marketing paragraph why beats did it in spite of the nerds telling them they had inferior quality and were overpriced, and then a big picture of a celebrity trying to look cool wearing beats.

#1. They found the golden niche

#2. They Ignored the critics and naysayers

#3. They pulled on the biggest celeb names they could find

#4. They looked at what consumers wanted, then made it

#5. They trusted their gut and risked it all

#6. They moved fast

#7. They had BIG brand help

#8. Don’t get cocky, never think you are done

This list reads like they are writing for the what used to be the underdog (Apple) but instead selling garbage to people who dont know any better.

Why should I laud this company?

Indeed, (and I am only mentioning this because Plantronics is also on the chart) I bought a pair of Plantronics GameCom 367 and they were absolutely abysmal. They were hooked to a Yamaha RX-V373 audio receiver which in turn was optically connected to a PC so it couldn't have been a question about the configuration. Anyway, the sound was completely flat, almost no bass - certainly no punch whatsoever, the highs were absurdly cut and the middles painfully mediocre to say the least. The entire range was so bad that I was really frustrated I couldn't return them due to a hideous store policy at that time in RO. Not to mention that when you would pass the 75% volume mark the sound was completely distorted. What a complete disgrace. :(

The big takeaway: always test the product before you buy it never fall for the hype.

Both sound and production quality of the “beats” (down to the very plastic) are crappy. But the marketing hype is done by artists. Even Apple fell for it.

"#4. They looked at what consumers wanted, then made it"

How is this a bad thing?

And in any case - I like my Beats, I had even more expensive Sennheiser headphones and I prefer the muddy, dirty, over-amplified bass of the Beats, because it works well with the music I listen to while programming. Yeah I know the Sennheiser headphones are probably "better" but I prefer something else. I just wish people didn't care as much, it's just headphones in the end.

I understand purchasing anything that is highly visible on your body as a fashion statement.