https://www.econtalk.org/seiko-swatch-and-the-swiss-watch-in...
Don't worry, Seiko learned: https://www.grand-seiko.com/us-en/collections/sbgd223j
Grand Seiko makes some truly beautiful watches, and also some terribly gaudy horrors.
The Brand Age
171–180 of 403 posts
Re: The Brand Age
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
He’s probably also too rich for fancy watches to actually be a useful signal of wealth amongst his peers.
The price isn’t keeping anyone at that level of wealth from buying a Nautilus or a Lange 1 or a panda Daytona. But they can still flex with ultralimited pieces like Zuck’s Greubel Forsey.
I didn't realize that "fools and their money will soon be parted" was a flex.
Re: The Brand Age
#173I 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…
Actually most watch collectors do not wear their most expensive watches, they have daily or travel watches to wear that carry less risk.
Also, watches are status symbols to a really narrow niche. Vast majority of people cannot name a non-Rolex expensive watch and would assume Seiko (and maybe Tissot) are the best watches after Rolex, followed by Swatch (and maybe Timex).
Re: The Brand Age
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price isn’t keeping anyone at that level of wealth from buying a Nautilus or a Lange 1 or a panda Daytona. But they can still flex with ultralimited pieces like Zuck’s Greubel Forsey.
I didn't realize that "fools and their money will soon be parted" was a flex.
“There are three of these things made in a year, and I’ve got the juice to get one of them” is. Zuck doesn’t care about a million dollar price tag, any more than I would care about a couple bucks.
Re: The Brand Age
#175Earlier 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.
You are pointing to an outlier that is not expensive due to its beauty but historical significance. Typical expensive watches look normal and beautiful: https://www.iwc.com/gb-en/watches/pilot-watches/iw388106-pil... https://www.omegawatches.com/en-gb/watch-omega-speedmaster-m... https://www.rolex.com/watches/submariner/m124060-0001
dang why did I click, they are gorgeous...
Re: The Brand Age
#176GPT doing a great job summarizing and providing a counter:
what's they key thesis here and the argument ?
*Key thesis:* When technology eliminates meaningful performance differences between products, industries shift from competing on *engineering and function* to competing on *brand and status*. The Swiss watch industry after the quartz crisis is a clear example: mechanical watches stopped being valuable tools and became *luxury symbols whose value comes mainly from branding, scarcity, and signaling wealth*.
*In one sentence:* The essay argues that when technology makes functional differences between products disappear, industries shift from engineering competition to branding competition, and the modern luxury watch market illustrates how that transformation works.
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If you want, I can also explain *why this essay is controversial among economists and designers*—there are a few big assumptions in the argument.
And the counter A few places the argument is debatable (even if it’s persuasive as a narrative):
It treats “brand” and “engineering” as mostly opposed. In practice, luxury buyers often do pay for engineering (finishing, durability, serviceability, movement architecture), and those technical choices can reinforce brand rather than fight it. The tension is real, but not always zero-sum.
It downplays other drivers of the Swiss recovery. The rebound isn’t only “they discovered brand.” Things like Swatch’s role in recapitalizing distribution/production, industry consolidation, improvements in manufacturing, and globalization of luxury demand can explain a lot of the late-1980s revenue surge alongside marketing.
The “artificial scarcity = managed asset bubble” framing is provocative but contestable. Scarcity can be interpreted as: capacity constraints, quality control, long-term brand stewardship, or channel strategy—not necessarily “bubble management.” It may function bubble-like in resale markets, but that doesn’t prove intent or fragility in the way financial bubbles work.
Some claims are asserted more than demonstrated. Examples: Rolex “abandoned research” after ~1960; “only three survived as independents”; “most brands are owned by six holding companies”; “they rebuy hundreds per year.” These might be true in broad strokes, but the essay uses them as load-bearing supports without showing evidence in-text (beyond a couple notes).
The design-history claims are simplified. Watch size and shape trends aren’t only branding; they’re also driven by changing tastes, ergonomics, manufacturing norms, sport/tool styling, and shifting notions of masculinity. “Big = cheap historically” is directionally true in some eras, but not a universal law.
The gender section is especially shaky. “Women never really went for mechanical watches” and the steam-engine analogy read like overgeneralizations—there are strong counterexamples (and cultural variation) that complicate that story.
Re: The Brand Age
#177" 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"…
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Re: The Brand Age
#178Earlier 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.
You are pointing to an outlier that is not expensive due to its beauty but historical significance. Typical expensive watches look normal and beautiful: https://www.iwc.com/gb-en/watches/pilot-watches/iw388106-pil... https://www.omegawatches.com/en-gb/watch-omega-speedmaster-m... https://www.rolex.com/watches/submariner/m124060-0001
Is this trolling or are you serious? Those are all, imo, hideous! They are blocky and unrefined and like they’re uncomfortable to wear.
Re: The Brand Age
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I have a set of very expensive hand made japanese irons (golf clubs). I assure you I did not buy them from social influence or clout. In fact, nobody ever really sees them except me. I bought them because the craftsmanship and how truly beautiful they are. They make me smile.
Re: The Brand Age
#180His 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…
I think there are a number of reasons for this, but a couple come to mind. First, pg seems distant from YC now (to those not at office hours, I guess), and rarely publishes new essays, so he's rarely discussed or present in the minds of commenters here. Also, pg has the fortune or misfortune to write in a way that feels like some LLM writing, when he's writing well. I haven't gone back to earlier essays to check this…
> pg has the fortune or misfortune to write in a way that feels like some LLM writing, when he's writing well.
It pains me to think how simplistic some peoples' LLM writing detection heuristics are (or at least appear to be). Prose such as in TFA is really obviously human-written to me. It's using those choppy sentences properly. It doesn't strike me as "less well-written" at all; the resulting contrast is clearly very intentional.
Although, of course, what you describe is still a couple levels above "Behold, what doth mine Ctrl-F espy but U+2014 EM DASH! Hie thee hence, O wretched automaton!"