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The Brand Age

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Brand Age

#191

Post by mlsu »

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…

Really?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Watches/comments/187srga/what_watch...

Clunky AF. The guy wearing this watch edited the OP's article, amongst other things. To any reasonable person the vast majority of these watches look like absolute dogshit. You know what looks good? The watches that these brands make for women!

PG described exactly the intention that goes into the design of these watches, in this very article. It's not what you say it is!

Re: The Brand Age

#193

Post by ChadNauseam »

chasebank wrote: post #179
Kon5ole wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one is saying that beautiful things don't exist. Just that watches specifically are rarely worth $100k because of their beauty.

Re: The Brand Age

#194

Post by zahlman »

fragmede wrote: post #11
7777777phil wrote: post #5

Nike is a useful test case (1) here. Brand was the whole competitive moat for them and once athletic gear commoditized, then management spent five years cutting the things that sustain it: athlete relationships, premium positioning, product development. Each cut looked (somewhat) rational on its own but none of them were, taken together. (1) https://philippdubach.com/posts/nikes-crisis-and-the-economi... EDIT: Neverm…

The question is, in this new software world order, how much do brands matter vs what they've done vs network effects. I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber clone, and have none of the baggage of Cambridge Analytica, being owned by Elon Musk, or Travis kalanick of Greyball and S. Fowler legacy. An Uber driver-turned-dev could easily stand up a competitor and give way more money to t…

> I could have Claude code shit out a... clone, and have none of the baggage...

Social media is different because of the network effects. Taking hold requires being there to catch refugees when something else collapses, and being sensitive to the fact of that collapse. It seems like quite a bit of luck is often required.

But you could also, you know, actually try to differentiate yourself. Figure out actual things that you'd want those sites to do differently, and have an opinion on which different approach to take.

And I especially wouldn't try with Twitter, because there are already at least two major competitors, and the people who have fled to them, in broad terms, seem to have done so based more on internal social strife than on any technical dissatisfaction. (Despite all the seemingly obvious technical issues to complain about!)

Re: The Brand Age

#195

Post by renjimen »

iamwil wrote: post #134

I kept thinking that he'd eventually compare it to writing software by hand, and how we're at the end of one golden age. But he never did. So I wonder what the impetus for the essay was.

Ditto. I kept waiting for the AI comparison. My interpretation was less agentic coding than the commodification of LLMs, forcing Anthropic and OpenAI into a pivot to focus on brand. Anthropic's spat with the DoD could be viewed through that lens: losing money on a deal to better position the brand.

Re: The Brand Age

#196

Post by renjimen »

Where I thought this was going: entering the Brand Age of AI. LLMs become commoditized, so the big labs increasingly focus on marketing and rhetoric to maintain market share. See the Anthropic spat with DoD (though I do applaud them for that, whatever their motivations).

Re: The Brand Age

#198

Post by [deleted] »

jgrahamc wrote: post #14

" 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"…

[deleted]

Re: The Brand Age

#199

Post by conception »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #108
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…

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

So you’re saying that $200 watches don’t sell?

But here - https://spechtandsohne.com/product-category/icon-quartz/

And they are pretty popular with folks who like watches.

Re: The Brand Age

#200

Post by lich_king »

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…

> 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?

There's plenty of art that's celebrated, but also kinda weird and ugly. Is "Vertumnus" by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1591) also a product of the "brand age"? What about various gargoyles and grotesques on old church buildings?

Some people just like weird art, maybe because they think it reflects their own quirky or rebellious nature. Some of these people have money. I don't see why we need some sort of a cynical theory of a "brand-obsessed culture" at the center of it. How many people in your social circle are obsessed with brands? We might have a brand or two we like, typically because we like the way the products look or work. That's about it.

I know some people who like expensive watches. They talk about the design a lot more than they talk about who made it.

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