Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Brand Age

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 403 posts

Re: The Brand Age

#321

Post by rswail »

garethsprice wrote: post #114
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"…

Humans are status-seeking creatures, and status is expressed through signaling. If you're rich and so are the people around you, money alone ceases to be a differentiator. Ultra-luxury brands appeal to this by adding hoops that money alone can't clear: time, loyalty, relationships. The signal shifts from "I can afford this" to "I was invited to spend my money here." Lines outside Louis Vuitton are more down-market, a…

> (Of course, PG writing an essay about being too smart for fancy watches - while knowing a lot about them - is its own signaling game, just aimed at a different audience)

He was aiming at people like the people commenting on this thread and who read the essay.

Also to the startup/entrepreneur founder-types that are actually interested in building a business that makes a qualitative improvement in the market that it works in.

But mechanical watches are very appealing to nerd/geek types as well, purely in terms of the design and engineering of the movements and the precision of the manufacture.

Complications are absolutely pointless, but making a movement that can deliver them is very appealing.

Re: The Brand Age

#322

Post by Symmetry »

benrutter wrote: post #308
philipallstar wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brands at least start out as a designation of quality, but in modern society, they're an important part in companies avoiding legal liability, and having more distributed supply chains. This isn't brand; this is legal company structure. Brand is "what people think of when they hear the word Nike".

I suppose we're just disagreeing on definition here - but I'd at least try to make the case that if people having a single thing they think of when they hear the word Nike, is necessary for a company to be able to structure itself that way legally. Otherwise, individual manufacturing companies, don't have the financial incentive to give companies like Nike as big a portion of the profits as they do. Currently that sy…

I think you have a different understanding of what exactly a brand is than do most people. Every profession has the right to develop its own jargon that subtly redefines common words in its own way so I'm not going to say that you're wrong about what "brand" means in any absolute way, just that you're wrong to say that pg is wrong.

Re: The Brand Age

#323

Post by zimpenfish »

TonyStr wrote: post #272
benleejamin wrote: post #42

I don't think the Brand Age is as bleak as this essay suggests. Branding is not inherently unproductive, nor is it guaranteed to produce worse watches. They may be larger and less accurate , but consumers still (evidently) find value in the brand. A Grand Seiko or a Nomos or a Patek is perhaps now even more interesting & identity-productive than a watch was in the 60s. As technologists I think we're prone to dismissi…

By the way, how much more do we need a watch to do? Do we really need notifications, messages, phone calls, cameras, bluetooth, snapchat, remote control, heart rate monitoring and more in our wristwatches? I'm quite satisfied with just seeing the time on my arm. Anything else I can do with my phone or laptop. Even seeing the time is kinda redundant, as I could just check my phone.

> Do we really need notifications, messages, phone calls, cameras, bluetooth, snapchat, remote control, heart rate monitoring and more in our wristwatches?

We? Maybe? Maybe not? Me? Yes, 100% Well, except Snapchat.

(Pro tip: Try not using your experience and desires as a guide/requirement for the larger populace - you'll feel a lot better about the world and yourself when you get the hang of it.)

> Anything else I can do with my phone or laptop.

The heart rate monitoring? Not nearly as accurate using a phone camera as a wrist-mounted multi-LED watch. Also I tend not to have my finger over my phone camera with a heartrate app running 24/7 - I find it gets in the way of actually using my phone for other stuff.

Re: The Brand Age

#324

Post by zimpenfish »

Nursie wrote: post #275
TonyStr wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, how much more do we need a watch to do? Do we really need notifications, messages, phone calls, cameras, bluetooth, snapchat, remote control, heart rate monitoring and more in our wristwatches? I'm quite satisfied with just seeing the time on my arm. Anything else I can do with my phone or laptop. Even seeing the time is kinda redundant, as I could just check my phone.

> Anything else I can do with my phone or laptop Most stuff, sure, but probably not - > heart rate monitoring So as someone who is cantering through middle age to a point in life close to where males in my family in older generations have experienced atrial fibrillation and other heart problems, having a heart rate monitor built into my watch that is capable of spotting early signs of this stuff is pretty cool. Havin…

> I'm considering an upgrade to one that does blood pressure too.

I've got the Aktiia/Hilo band and I'd recommend it if you're wanting to keep vague[0] track of your 24/7[0] blood pressure. Needs calibrating every couple of weeks against the band but that's not an onerous procedure[1][2].

(Probably worth getting a cheapo monitor as a secondary check though - I've got a Renpho bluetooth one.)

[0] It only really takes measurements when you're not "moving" and that can be "running around", "jumping up and down", "typing furiously", etc. which does lead to gaps and only 3-4 measurements every 2 hour slot. Also their app is a bit rubbish and they don't have a decent export story - if you want more than their "daily average → Health", you need BPExtract to OCR the monthly PDF reports (which you have to request by hand, BTW!)

[1] Protip! DO NOT drop the band onto its on/off switch because it's fragile and will BORKEN itself. Mine got stuck in the on position but I've subverted the problem by sticking a magnetic MicroUSB end into the charging point[3] - applying power kicks it into charging mode and removing it leaves it in "ready to use" mode for 5-10 minutes which is more than enough for standard calibrations and testing.

[2] Although their new "BP via the camera and finger" doesn't work AT ALL for me. Almost never gets a reading.

[3] Which I've started doing for all MicroUSB devices because I've somehow managed to snap off 3 MicroUSB ports internally. Shoddy workmanship.

Re: The Brand Age

#325

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #302
benrutter wrote: post #274

I liked reading this essay, but, I get the same vibe as a lot of PG essays. Which is, great writing and really intelligent thinking on an interesting subject, but without really being aware of ther stuff people have previously said/thought on the topic. For instance: > Brand is what's left when the substantive differences between products disappear. I think, for better and worse, brands are a lot more than that. Bran…

> Nike couldn't be the global brand it was today if it directly managed all its factories. This is a weird statement to me. Replace "Nike" with "Intel". Intel manages all of its factories and is a global brand. (Yes, I know they recently outsourced some chip manuf to TSMC, but Intel was surely a global brand in the 1990s.) I don't get it. What am I missing?

[deleted]

Re: The Brand Age

#326

Post by tiffanyh »

benrutter wrote: post #307
throwaway2037 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nike couldn't be the global brand it was today if it directly managed all its factories. This is a weird statement to me. Replace "Nike" with "Intel". Intel manages all of its factories and is a global brand. (Yes, I know they recently outsourced some chip manuf to TSMC, but Intel was surely a global brand in the 1990s.) I don't get it. What am I missing?

Intel is definitely the exception. For most companies, like Nike or Apple to take two, they in-house design work, but then contract out manufacturing to external companies, who often themselves subcontract out work further. I'm speculating now, but it seems really likely if that type of distributed supply chain didn't exist, we'd see a closer coupling of design and manufacturing (at an extreme end factories designing…

Aren’t we talking about a company being “virtually integrated”.

Re: The Brand Age

#327

Post by zimpenfish »

rswail wrote: post #320
jorisboris wrote: post #254

Innovation brings a golden age, then innovation flattens, competition arises and branding becomes more important Flying was having its golden age around the times of Concorde and 747, coffee bars were great when Starbucks reinvented the 3rd place and social media was cool when it just came out It very much relates to that Steve Jobs clip about what happens when the marketing people take over the company

Many countries have avoided the complete brand/chain-ification of the US market. Cafes and coffee places are still great, Starbucks did for them what McDonalds did for food. They're a known standard of quality. It might be low, but it's known. Starbucks didn't invent the 3rd place, or re-invent it. As jobs moved from manufacturing to services, more people were able to work in a way that the "3rd place" offers. The ul…

> The actual planes are much better today than in the "golden age ... of Concorde and 747"

Although if what I learnt from QI is to be believed[0], the internal air quality is now much worse than when smoking was allowed because they don't recycle the air through filters as much (if at all) these days.

[0] I believe they're about 90% reliable with their "wacky" facts.

Re: The Brand Age

#329

Post by gomox »

From the title and the beginning, I was sure this was going to be about the imminent brand age in software with the commoditization of the software engineering discipline brought on by AI.

Re: The Brand Age

#330

Post by alexpotato »

benrutter wrote: post #274

I liked reading this essay, but, I get the same vibe as a lot of PG essays. Which is, great writing and really intelligent thinking on an interesting subject, but without really being aware of ther stuff people have previously said/thought on the topic. For instance: > Brand is what's left when the substantive differences between products disappear. I think, for better and worse, brands are a lot more than that. Bran…

> I think, for better and worse, brands are a lot more than that.

There is a great quote about this:

"For things that are visible to other people when you use them, there are many brands. e.g clothes, cars, watches, skis, furniture etc

For things that are not visible, there are much fewer brands e.g. underwear.

Post reply on HN