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6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#151

Post by leocgcd »

keiferski wrote: post #141
leocgcd wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charismatic founders are PR lol. Steve Jobs was a market strategist. >To be tech was to stand against the corporate types who milked people for money without offering real value. Positioning yourself as punk, as pro-consumer, as an alternative to the corporate hegemony... This was all carefully developed by marketers and brand strategists to grow their vision of selling tech. You are not immune to propaganda, it was…

I think the single best argument against this viewpoint is to just look outside. People are obsessed with iPhones because they're a superior product, not because they were sucked into a PR campaign filled with Justin Long ads.

Thinking that TV spots are the limits of brand strategy is just kind of naive.

You think iPhones are a superior product... Why? Other phones have more RAM, better screens, more capable OS. An iPhone is designed in response to market demands-- it is the vision of Apple to anticipate what users will want, and to show users what phones can be.

So many Apple billboards around New York show kids or families, the "memories" function of the iOS Photos app is designed to pull from forgotten pictures and tug on your heartstrings. Part of this is Apple marketing responding to a demographic of tech-consuming people becoming parents or grandparents... But it is also Apple showing us what tech is good for. It's a vision of compassionate technology that will hopefully sell more iPhones while also structuring the narrative of what an iPhone is. An iPhone is a superior product not because it has the best tech specs or the best combination of components. An iPhone is the superior product because the future of technology can be compassionate, and Apple wants to position themselves there. This is a marketing strategy, and it is likely why you associate iPhones with quality and superiority.

We cannot immediately see all possible uses and promises of technology, no matter how tech-literate we think we are. It takes institutional vision (in many cases a function of market/brand strategy) to figure out what makes a good product and how we can show people that our product fulfills that idea.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#152

Post by fragmede »

ryandrake wrote: post #46
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

While this author is of a younger generation, this really resonated with me as a Gen Xer. I feel there is so much disillusionment among folks that came of age during the 90s because there was so much techno optimism then, and it didn't quite turn out like we envisioned. Two things made me think about this recently: 1. I saw a Reddit post that was titled something like "The 90s were peak humanity. Enough tech to make…

I used to love computers and software. When the next great thing came out, I’d be an enthusiastic early adopter, and enjoyed the new powers the technology gave me. Now, whenever something new comes out, my first thought is: “how is this thing going to suck up my personal data and monetize me?” And my second thought is “how is this going to wreck some part of life and/or humanity and turn it into profits for the rich?…

> You can’t be a techno-optimist anymore.

You can't? Just yesterday, Waymo opened their self-driving taxi service to the general public in San Francisco. We now have self driving cars. You draw a stick figure and the computer draws the rest of the fucking owl. I have an AI that I talk to on my phone and I tell it about my life's bullshit and it guides me through it. It helps me with my writing and my programming. Robots are getting better and better. Pretty soon we'll have humanoid robot companions to help around the house. I earnestly believe that I'll live to see the singularity.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#153

Post by tim333 »

mordae wrote: post #84
seoulmetro wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech is fine. It's the money we made along the way that ruined it. Somehow money ruins everything. The internet just made it easier for people to extract money from everything.

Sadly it's not money. It's inequality. To build a stable business, you need to carer to the rich more then to anybody else.

I don't think that's the issue so much as the global reach of tech makes it winner take all. Instead of 100,000 retailers making a bit of money they go bust and Jeff Bezos makes all the money.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#154

Post by keiferski »

leocgcd wrote: post #151
keiferski wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the single best argument against this viewpoint is to just look outside. People are obsessed with iPhones because they're a superior product, not because they were sucked into a PR campaign filled with Justin Long ads.

Thinking that TV spots are the limits of brand strategy is just kind of naive. You think iPhones are a superior product... Why? Other phones have more RAM, better screens, more capable OS. An iPhone is designed in response to market demands-- it is the vision of Apple to anticipate what users will want, and to show users what phones can be. So many Apple billboards around New York show kids or families, the "memories…

The TV commercial reference was a joke. Sheesh.

iPhones are extremely popular around the world and in 99% of those places, the people have little or no interaction with Apple billboards or marketing. Not everyone is a family in New York City, or even speaks English.

You’d have more of a point if you said Apple aims to portray a premium brand and therefore they have this reputation globally because of marketing, but even then, that doesn’t last for long if the products themselves don’t have a good reputation.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#155

Post by dmurray »

genewitch wrote: post #145
dmurray wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hosting video is expensive; a Twitch streamer (Thor) mentioned that an 8-hour stream at 1080p with 8,000 viewers costs Twitch nearly $5,000, while 720p still costs around $1,300. This sounds way too much - prohibitive, in fact, when cheap all-you-can-eat dubiously-legal IPTV services exist. On the one hand, AWS quote something similar as an estimate ($12,000 for 10 hours for 10,000 viewers at 1080p) [0]. All but a…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H_sNcbXj5A0 my source for the part you quoted - apparently this is in their dashboard? it could be a third party site. I no longer have access to a twitch account (as an aside i blame starlink and not using gmail) so i can't verify if streamers on the platform have access to those tools. And the pricing seemed about right . You can't tell but i am napkin-ing this right now: twitch recom…

> Come to think of it that's suspiciously close to what i'd guess AWS would charge for transit (which you alluded to, i think) - so this is showing streamers what they would be paying if they self hosted?

It was always going to be something like that. It's unlikely Amazon/Twitch wants to reveal exactly its costs. In general, people complain that egress bandwidth seems to be a high-margin line item for AWS.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#156

Post by bobdvb »

dmurray wrote: post #107
genewitch wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hosting video is expensive; a Twitch streamer (Thor) mentioned that an 8-hour stream at 1080p with 8,000 viewers costs Twitch nearly $5,000, while 720p still costs around $1,300. Personally, I prefer 720p. It's easy to play on any device, the file sizes are much smaller, and the quality is fine. I don't need 4K for most content and save it for exceptional visuals like Godfrey Reggio's Trilogy or Yojimbo — one of the…

> Hosting video is expensive; a Twitch streamer (Thor) mentioned that an 8-hour stream at 1080p with 8,000 viewers costs Twitch nearly $5,000, while 720p still costs around $1,300. This sounds way too much - prohibitive, in fact, when cheap all-you-can-eat dubiously-legal IPTV services exist. On the one hand, AWS quote something similar as an estimate ($12,000 for 10 hours for 10,000 viewers at 1080p) [0]. All but a…

Many 'dubious-legal IPTV services' will use stolen or trial AWS, Azure, Cloudflare, etc accounts for their CDN and when the account gets locked they just spring up another account.

So the cloud providers tend to be the one's paying and consequently their legitimate customers pay.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#157

Post by imiric »

leocgcd wrote: post #132
imiric wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A good marketer, like a good actor, lives in their promises like they are already real. The realer and more convinced you are, the more you can speak your vision into reality. Wow. Don't you see the problem with selling something that doesn't exist? There's a thin line between making up a story to make people buy a product, and straight up scamming people with a nonexistent product. Elizabeth Holmes was a genius ma…

Marketers necessarily sell something that doesn't exist because part of their job is creating that thing. Theranos is an example of a failed project through and through, but even something unarguably successful like the iPhone was built through market strategizing-- not just technical engineering. Identifying what consumers wanted, conveying that vision, shaping a compelling brand, these are all things that can easil…

> Marketers necessarily sell something that doesn't exist because part of their job is creating that thing.

Funny. I thought a marketer's job is helping companies sell their product, not selling a nonexistent product based on a vision. The individuals and companies doing the latter are known as grifters, snake oil salesmen and scammers.

The iPhone succeeded because it was a fantastic product released at the right moment in history. Apple saw a major gap in the market, and they filled it brilliantly. No amount of marketing would've made the iPhone a success if it wasn't an outstanding product on its own right. Apple embellished its capabilities with its usual marketing tactics, but the product was real, and people wanted it regardless.

What you're advocating for is exactly what Theranos did. Market the product first even if it doesn't exist yet, and the product will miraculously materialize from that vision. This is known as fraud, and is what rightfully landed its CEO in prison.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#158

Post by leocgcd »

keiferski wrote: post #154
leocgcd wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking that TV spots are the limits of brand strategy is just kind of naive. You think iPhones are a superior product... Why? Other phones have more RAM, better screens, more capable OS. An iPhone is designed in response to market demands-- it is the vision of Apple to anticipate what users will want, and to show users what phones can be. So many Apple billboards around New York show kids or families, the "memories…

The TV commercial reference was a joke. Sheesh. iPhones are extremely popular around the world and in 99% of those places, the people have little or no interaction with Apple billboards or marketing. Not everyone is a family in New York City, or even speaks English. You’d have more of a point if you said Apple aims to portray a premium brand and therefore they have this reputation globally because of marketing, but e…

Joke or not, you're still demonstrating that you're naive about the scope of brand strategy.

The majority of brand management work is not material that is shown to the public, it is strategic decision making about how to position a brand and control it's reputation across markets. This includes yuppies in NYC and teenagers in Southeast Asia. The cultural positioning of Apple is a function of western hegemony and global memetics. An Eastern European housewife that wants an iPhone doesn't want it because she's done the tech research to understand that it is the most reliable and technically sound product, she wants it because Apple has taken great care to maintain their image through brand strategy. She probably sees iPhones on social media, in the hands of celebrities, the nicest store in her city is the new Apple outpost, they're teaching classes on apps and she wants to have the experience that she sees other iPhone users having.

Your misunderstanding is a larger trend in the tech space of people overvaluing "utility" instead of recognizing that the driving forces of any industry-- not just tech-- cannot be reduced to a spec sheet.

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#159

Post by keiferski »

leocgcd wrote: post #158
keiferski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TV commercial reference was a joke. Sheesh. iPhones are extremely popular around the world and in 99% of those places, the people have little or no interaction with Apple billboards or marketing. Not everyone is a family in New York City, or even speaks English. You’d have more of a point if you said Apple aims to portray a premium brand and therefore they have this reputation globally because of marketing, but e…

Joke or not, you're still demonstrating that you're naive about the scope of brand strategy. The majority of brand management work is not material that is shown to the public, it is strategic decision making about how to position a brand and control it's reputation across markets. This includes yuppies in NYC and teenagers in Southeast Asia. The cultural positioning of Apple is a function of western hegemony and glob…

I actually live in Eastern Europe, and no, that woman doesn’t care about the iPhones in the hands of celebrities and there is no Apple Store here, and the top shop that specializes in Apple products is mediocre and has bad reviews. In fact, there are no Apple Stores in a lot of countries. [0] There is also minimal advertising done by Apple - although there is a ton by Huawei (how well do you think that works?) iPhones are popular because they’re perceived as a high quality product from a dependable Western company. Not because they have billboards and celebrity sponsorships.

You really don’t seem to understand how widespread Apple is, and instead are intent on portraying yourself as some kind of expert that puts down others. Their popularity isn’t merely due to some brand strategy plan, as their products are practically a baseline of modern life at this point.

I didn’t say anything about “utility” I said their products were higher quality, which they are. Especially on the design/UI front. People buy them because the competition simply isn’t as good, among other social reasons. A mastermind branding plan is not really that relevant when you’re already as widespread as they are. Nothing I wrote has anything to do with customers doing tech research.

So just to reiterate and wrap up this conversation: no, Apple is not widely used because their branding team crafted a smart campaign for every corner of the globe. They are widespread because they’ve been making solid products for a long time, people use them, and then form an impression that they’re quality products. All the advertising and celebrity sponsorships and everything else are dressing at best.

This is a unique situation and if you were talking about anyone other than Apple, I’d agree with you that the market positioning / PR is key, but in this instance it’s simply not the case.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Store#Countries_and_regi...

Re: 6 months ago, I left the bullshit industrial complex

#160

Post by eszed »

tim333 wrote: post #153
mordae wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly it's not money. It's inequality. To build a stable business, you need to carer to the rich more then to anybody else.

I don't think that's the issue so much as the global reach of tech makes it winner take all. Instead of 100,000 retailers making a bit of money they go bust and Jeff Bezos makes all the money.

You're re-stating GP's point. I agree with both of you.
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