The Age of Unjustifiable Consumerism
newark1.com
newark1.com
No, it exists as evidence of trying to be happy by craving material possessions. We believe that they'll make us happy, but all they really provide is temporary relief from our cravings and then more misery once the craving reasserts itself. It's a cycle that never leads to actual happiness.
Advertising does create demand, but it plays upon people's existing dissatisfaction with their lives. It only works because so many people are so unhappy. If more people were better connected with other people and able to live in the moment, advertising would be less effective.
It's not just that. It amplifies peoples' dissatisfaction. Brings it to focus, in order to convince them that the advertised product will help. It keeps telling people that they will be happier if they buy, and then it tells them what to buy.
> If more people were better connected with other people and able to live in the moment, advertising would be less effective.
Yeah, if more people would be able to resist the impact of huge armies of highly trained, highly paid professionals, with access to state-of-the-art research in psychology, sociology and economics, who also can leverage resources of huge multinational corporations... Yeah, if each of one individually could only resist that, we'd all be fine.
It's more than that. It's an evolved behavior for status signaling. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C4B2TC0
They believe smart phones are a major threat to their privacy and wallet so they just don't bother with them at all. They just don't actually need them.
It's had me thinking for sometime now whether or not I actually needed a AUD $1000+ smart phone, when I first purchased one it was only society that told me I needed one, no one else.
Food for thought.
It reminds me of a cool classic sci-fi movie about consumerism. John Carpenter's "They Live". I watched it as a kid but it started to make sense later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live
"Nada quickly discovers the sunglasses have unique properties: they reduce the colors of the world around him to black and white and allow him to see that media and advertising hide omnipresent subliminal totalitarian commands to obey, consume, reproduce, and conform. They also make clear that many people in positions of wealth and power are actually humanoid aliens with skull-like faces."
Obviously it depends where you are in Europe. In the UK I'd say we're a lot more towards the American end of consumerism but they still take it much further. Food is the biggest jump for me. I still remember my first time in America and I was out for dinner. My friend suggested we split a meal as the portions were large. I still couldn't finish mine (and I eat quite a lot) and she brought home a doggie bag with enough food for two other people. And this was quite a nice restaurant too where I'd have expected smaller portions.
(Of course you also see a lot of heads buried in phones as soon as you step anywhere near a university – or anywhere else.)
This also applies to graduates. People in the 25-35 age bracket around me have less smart phone usage than what I experienced in other countries. Among my friends almost anything is discussed face-to-face, via phone, or via email (in that order) and if I have to wait until the evening for an answer that's fine.
Owning a beaten-up low end smartphone for the utility (e.g. being able to check public transport times anywhere) is well within the "compromise" range for just about everybody, playing the "latest iPhone every fall" game would be clearly out of range for many.
The "going low-tech" crowd just happens to be very sensitive (and hostile) to signs of consumerism and this perception blinds out all traces of utility they might see otherwise. "I'm too smart to play a game i can't win" is a very desirable status message to send and it's best conveyed by an old Nokia. Being in Berlin and having a good time also makes them pretty immune to the nagging question of "am i missing out on something big by not having a smartphone?" that is driving smartphone adoption in other parts of society (e.g. the elderly).
PS: oh, and one argument in favor of "can't afford" crossed my mind nonetheless: some might actually think that they can't afford a smartphone. The really cheap options are not heavily advertised, so non-technical people in Germany often think that all smartphone ownership would be as expensive as the ridiculous "1€ iPhone" contracts they see on the billboards. Avoiding smartphone ownership because you are scared of hidden costs would be a very, very "german" thing to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_smartphon...
The liberty of movement a Bluetooth pair gives you, either running, around the house, or in your commute, made me never go back... I'm already on my 7th different Bluetooth headphone/earphone.
You can critique the design that Apple chose for its Bluetooth hearbuds, but don't say Bluetooth headphones/earphones in general are unjustifiable consumerism and that wired is the way to go...
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wireless-exercise-head...
My understanding are the AirPods are a relative bargain when compared to other models that use independent pieces in each ear.
The critique of Apple is that they're only offering Bluetooth headphones. Bluetooth headphones work great on iPhones that have a headphone jack. If Apple introduced these headphones and kept the traditional headphone jack, there'd be no criticism.
For me expending 159 USD in those earbuds in VERY CHEAP considering that making one pair of those myself will cost me some tens of millions of dollars.
Try it yourself to put accelerometers and gyroscopes, microphones a battery, a digital to analog converter, infrared sensors in such a small space and then tell me this is expensive.
There are professional people who could spend wisely on something so lightweight like this and 160 dollars is no money. For example we have some robots controlled by voice and the current wireless headphones we use weight too much. Cables are dangerous in this environment.
Some people believe that the world and the Universe rules around them. If they have not use for wireless earpods, or they don't have money for it, then nobody in the world has use for it, it it so expensive and "Unjustifiable consumerism".
Apple has a history of bringing things to market that "nobody will use" by the critics and then when they sell like crazy it is marketing and people being stupid.
If you consider people stupid, you should consider that maybe you are the stupid one and marketting in the real sense actually means understanding the market so well you create the thing that people needs before they know.
After someone lent me a Gopro camera, I realize I needed one. That was marketing? Yeah, it was someone who had the same needs I have creating the product I needed before I knew.
It's either criticized as some magical tool that can flip a switch in people's mind and make them buy anything, or something completely useless because people should be able to educate themselves about the objective qualities of products before they make a decision.
Every discussion gets muddled between people who a) have no experience in the field b) mix up marketing with advertising, with sales, or with anything they feel like criticizing c) do not seem to like the idea of commerce itself.
The trouble I've noticed is that the vast majority are completely unwilling to consider that what they feel is "the cheapest shit you can get away with" could also be a perfectly fine product for a set of users.
The product that will solve a problem for the largest number of people will tend to be cheap. That means most of the time it won't meet the requirement of first-world privileged engineers who think everything has to meet impossibly high standards of quality. But that doesn't mean it's something that's not worthy of anybody's consideration.
So I guess the problem is with the "tricking people" rather than the quality of the product. But here's some sobering reality for you: no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want. You need a good product, i.e. a product people want.
Sure, some companies will use false advertising (illegal) or use other (illegal) means of coercing people into buying things.
And... that's not "marketing", sorry.
Much like I won't call "terrorism" "engineering" because some people used engineering knowledge to blow up a car somewhere.
Where cheapness is bad is when it is sacrificing a large amount of utility for a marginal price reduction, to trick people into thinking it's the best value.
> no amount of "tricking" whatsoever will make people buy things they don't want.
Well of course not, since the "trick" is making them want it when it will provide little benefit.
Do you think that people buying Pet Rocks have been "tricked" into something, for example?
I buy these products because they are the tools I use to earn my living. The EarPods are just another accessory that may or may not make sense to you.
""" In an economy, the consumption of Veblen goods is a function of the Veblen effect (goods desired for being over-priced) that is named after the American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). """
As it is, there is a limitless supply of consumers. Society does not need you to play too.
>> What brings this to mind is the introduction of the Apple iPhone 7. One of its highly touted 'features' is the elimination of a headphone jack. Taking advantage of this 'feature' requires the purchase of optional wireless earbuds (AirPods) that retail for an additional $159.00. Plus, the AirPods need their batteries charged independent of your smartphone on a dedicated charger (each charge lasts a maximum of five hours) .
1. The elimination of the headphone jack is not touted as a 'feature'. The bluetooth alternative using the W1 chip is and that's not actually related to the phone.
2. AirPod's are an optional accessory. Just like a case. Or any other pair of wireless headphones. Standard headphones still ship in the box as always and connect to your phone with a wire. Complaining that they are 'required' to use a feature of the phone (which again, they are not) is like complaining you need to buy a Car to use the 'CarPlay' feature or that you need to buy a lightbulb to use the 'HomeKit' feature.
3. Of course they need charging. Just like most other wireless headphones. In fact charging AirPods is more convenient than most because the carrying case doubles as a charger and stores 24hours power. So when they're in your pocket not being used they can be charging.
When is this circle jerk going to stop? If you're going to waste time keeping it going at least get the basic facts right.
Fine, but they haven't even been released yet. EarPods are the best fitting earphones for me. However I'm sure for others they fall out all the time. My point is that a paragraph based on the assertion that these 'expensive' earphones will fall out is ridiculous when the author hasn't tried them and their fit will differ from person to person.
(If this happens, I would blame part of it on the tactical decision to announce the airpods alongside the removal of the headphone jack. If those had been spread out over an iPhone generation or two, the airpods would have been met with a lot less hostility. Or maybe this was the plan, make people vent all their steam on the airpods while happily plugging into the lightning port?)