The Brand Age • Hacker News Board

Re: The Brand Age

#151

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:47 PM UTC

thimkerbell wrote: post #146

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #133

> Now they cost a lot because brands spend a lot on advertising and use tricks to limit supply, and what the buyer gets in return is an expensive status symbol. Sounds a hell of a lot like the diamond industry. Also, the top fashion houses, but both industries are taking a drubbing from artificial competition (artificial diamonds, and knockoffs, of various stripes). I'm a believer in branding. I worked for many years…

How do "big brands" deal with efforts pretty clearly (but deniably) aimed at sabotaging their brand? Besides the ebay approach.

Like pissing in beer vats?[0]

Sometimes, you can't fight it, but other times, trying to correct can only make things worse.

This is where having sober, experienced PR people and CEOs comes into play. There's no "textbook" way to deal with this stuff. It is different, each time, so you need smart leaders (something in short supply, these days).

The company that I worked for, was a camera company. One of their brand-protection strategies, was to have as much control as possible over any images made public from their cameras.

They went waaaaaay out of their way to help photographers get the best results, and it was a bitch to get test images from prerelease kit.

[0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/corona-urine-rumor-cou...

Re: The Brand Age

#152

Post by fwip » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

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…

> The people who buy them love them.

Yeah, when you spend half a million dollars on a watch, the sunk-cost fallacy has gotta hit hard.

Re: The Brand Age

#153

Post by tlkGah » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

Apparently this was written to wrap the AI promotion:

"The more subtle lesson is that fields have natural rhythms that are beyond the power of individuals to resist. Fields have golden ages and not so golden ages, and you're much more likely to do good work in a field that's on the way up."

Cigarettes were resisted, leaded fuel was resisted, nuclear energy was resisted. AI is already being resisted and the resistance will grow.

Re: The Brand Age

#154

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:02 PM UTC

boelboel wrote: post #84

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ego, of course This is so silly. Do you really not have any hobbies where you spend inordinate time or money on things you could objectively accomplish quicker and cheaper, but having less fun, in other ways? Like, I ski. It’s a silly way to get up and down a hill in the 21st century. I’m not a watch guy. But mechanical watches are beautiful. There are idiots who buy them. But that doesn’t mean everyone who does is…

Collecting watches isn't a hobby, it's pure consumerism. Sure many hobbies have (recently?) gotten way more people spending top dollars for no reason but with watch collecting there's nothing else. You're not tweaking the dials, you don't know how to make the watch, you just watch it and wear it while a technologically superior version is 500 times cheaper. There's also no natural shortage of them, they can make a tr…

What is wrong with watch consumerism? It isn't like it's ruining the planet and hurting anyone. Like you said, there is no shortage and nobody will die without them.

Re: The Brand Age

#155

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:02 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #102

davidw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Harley Davidson, anyone?

Re: The Brand Age

#156

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:04 PM UTC

wcfrobert wrote: post #119

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…

I disagree. It's worth asking why some people find brand watches beautiful? Where did they get their sense of aesthetic? Were they born with a congenital preference for RM 16-01 Citron? Culture shapes our taste. Companies go on multi-decade billion-dollar campaigns to shape our culture. We like certain things because famous actors or athletes endorse them; because hip hop artists rap about them; because influencers t…

> RM 16-01 Citron

Wow that is certainly a look.

Re: The Brand Age

#157

Post by renewiltord » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:05 PM UTC

dtn wrote: post #147

renewiltord wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To everyone else who reads this and thinks to themselves "Man, this guy has a refined palate that PG doesn't have. PG can't appreciate beauty", go take a look at the Nautilus yourself https://glennbradford.com/products/patek-philippe-nautilus-0... It looks like an Aliexpress Timex.

Where do you think the Aliexpress Timex designs came from?

Guy who still wears high-heels because they originated in men using them in stirrups. "No, babe, this is normal. It's actually good men's fashion. Where did you think your heels originated?"

Re: The Brand Age

#158

Post by fragmede » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #112

ChadNauseam wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well firstly, they don't charge $200 for them because they can't produce them for $200. But the point I'm making is he seems to be trying to say they aren't beautiful. He says he's describing this "dark" world or "strange" watches. I do actually think he probably thinks the watches look strange. I don't think he thinks they're beautiful, maybe he'll find a brand to fall in love with one day. I doubt it because he see…

You're confusing the price of something with how much it costs to make it. Prices are just a made up number. Hopefully, the amount someone will pay you for the watch you made is more than it costs you to make it, and you have a sustainable business, but the funny thing about capitalism is that is not at all guaranteed. If the company wants to juice sales, they'll have a limited time discount. Or how about when the company is bankrupt and out of business? Then theres a fire sale and the price of something is pennies on the dollar. So they could sell the watches for $200, or they could give them away for free, or they can charge $100k, or they could barter for them. It's all a matter of business.

Re: The Brand Age

#159

Post by TacticalCoder » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

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…

I agree with several things in TFA but you're right that some people just love these because they look beautiful.

TFA says this:

> If mechanical watches had only been accurate to a minute a day they couldn't have made the leap from keeping time to displaying wealth.

I don't think it's necessarily about displaying wealth: we could discuss humans (not just women but also men) wearing some kind of jewelry since thousands of years, including poor people who don't do it to display wealth but just because they enjoy the look of it. There was an article about monkeys enjoying the looks of crystals the other day I think.

One example would be people who don't dress nicely and who drive a cheap car and overal look like they just don't care about what others do think, and yet wear a dive watch. There are countless dive watches, be it a cheap no-name one, a perfect chinese replica of a Rolex Submariner (some replicas have most parts that can be exchanged with real Rolexes, which created the entire "frankenwatch" thing: where some parts are from the true brand and others have been swapped by chinese parts) or a real Rolex Submariner or Sea-Dweller costing $10 K to $20 K (for the base models).

Also in an age of alienating technology, something has to be said about a 100% mechanical device that's not connected to anything and doesn't require a battery to work, however imprecisely: it's not just about the beauty of the object when you look at it. It's also the beauty in having something that's not spying on you.

Just like there are people who, for a variety of reason, only ever take out their old Ferrari for a spin at night (when there's no trafic).

I take it you could very probably say: "Most people own fancy mechanical watches and high-end sport cars to flaunt wealth". But you can't generalize to 100% of watch owners and Ferrari owners.

Re: The Brand Age

#160

Post by Kon5ole » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 11:12 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #112

ChadNauseam wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well firstly, they don't charge $200 for them because they can't produce them for $200. But the point I'm making is he seems to be trying to say they aren't beautiful. He says he's describing this "dark" world or "strange" watches. I do actually think he probably thinks the watches look strange. I don't think he thinks they're beautiful, maybe he'll find a brand to fall in love with one day. I doubt it because he see…

I think you are missing his point - the items are desireable because of the brand. The stories, the movie stars, the songs and so on.

They don’t possess a universal, objectively valuable beauty that motivates the desire. If they did, fakes would be equally desireable and they are not.