I wanted to ask for long time this question, Why does this keeps happening?
Apple, Kagi, Vivaldi, news companies and even Google.
I started seeing a good amount of people who stopped caring about consumer rights/freedom and started to think and advocate for companies.
Even in non-brands cases, a lot of people buy the product with the highest price, because they think that it has a higher quality despite the fact that there is no necessary correlation between both.
How do I know that? I know a shop that buy cheap products and sell them with very expensive price tag, to my surprise they are making insane profits.
What is happening?
Unlike one of the main assumptions capitalism is built on – that people always act in their own best interest – people are extremely easy to manipulate. Basically, capitalism is broken (does not actually work on the assumptions it is said to be built on) and there is financial incentive to keep it that way and exploit it. This is what happens when profit is king.
In short: late stage capitalism is what’s happening.
I am also honestly surprised how much money is to be made in drop shipping. Like is there just a significant portion of the population just seeing ads clicking them then buying whatever product from some shady website. Then they wait a month for it to arrive from China in a package that has been very obviously drop shipped. Like does no one do any research into what they are buying and what it should cost?
I enjoyed the simplicity of old video game RPGs where the price of the item directly scaled with the value of the item. Armor for 1000gp was just straight out better than the one for 300gp.
Wot’s … video…eh?
I don’t think there is anything wrong with having strong brand preferences based on reputation and personal experience. The issue is when people become fanboys.
The worst one IMHO is YETI coolers. Sure their stuff is well made but the prices are obscene, and there are loads of absolute tools who will buy everything they make and make a cooler brand their whole identity. $40 for a 5 gallon bucket? Come on.
I have a yeti mug that is freakin amazing. I will be sad when i inevitably lose it. I also would never ever ever pay that much for a coffee mug. Ridiculous
Now excuse me while i get something from my Milwaukee Packout™ toolbox
I think you can get a plate that will allow you to attach that Yeti to your Packout!
Yetis are good by their pricing is such a scam. It’s honestly incredible theyre even still in business.
Also Stanley.
The new Stanley cup collector craze absolutely. It’s bonkers.
That said Stanley makes high quality stuff at far more reasonable prices than Yeti. I have a Stanley coffee thermos I have used every day for almost a decade. It was like $30.
People buy stuff for the image. Apple has cultivated a certain image with its branding that people are attracted to and buy their products because of it. I’ve heard it described as “People don’t buy what you make but what you are.” The image and brand of the company is often why people buy from them. Apple produces products for cool hip people, not the stuffy old guys in suits! You’re a cool person, right?
Something being expensive is often part of the image. People like to pretend they’re rich and the more expensive all their stuff is the more they can project that image. It can also be self validation. Owning expensive products can someone feel better about their lives.
Most people’s behaviours make them indistinguishable from cattle. Not to diminish them, just that, for the most part, you’re bound to think, live and express yourself locally. That makes you extremely easy to manipulate, especially when nowadays there are unthinkable amounts of data being collected on you at every given time. This, in turn, makes psycho history more a concept of the current reality than a fictional scientific discovery. I.e. the role of Cambridge analytica and Steve Bannon during the Brexit campaign. If these idiots can influence a country like the UK, against their best interest, what makes you think that the exact same strategy is not being employed on us at any moment in time, to maximise capital extraction? The proof is in the pudding. The last decade saw the largest transfer of wealth from the general populace to the 1%. We’re basically suffering the consequences of 3 generations of functional regards.
Further to the Brexit thing, another example is Corbyn running for PM in 2017(?), offering a four day week, state ownership of energy, rail etc…loads of left wing and socialist stuff, but not extremely so. But the press said he’d ruin the country, so people started parroting that, then when you pushed them to explain why, the responses varied from “well he will won’t he” to “common sense isn’t it?”. Absolutely infuriated me.
Corbyn was an ostensive victim of character assassination because some of his progressive labour protection policies we’re a bit to good, they might make the people actually vote for him. He was removed from the party in one of the dirtiest campaigns I’ve seen to date. Fast forward to today and we see the result, the UK is fast moving to general “right to work” à lá USA, abandoning any pretense of being a civilised country.
Kagi is a pretty good search engine if you’re a middle class nerd living in the bay area.
if you’re a nerd is there any reason to prefer Kagi than searXNG
basically the problem is everybody else is stupid sheeple and I’m smart and understand that everything is exactly the same and also should be free forever
Huh?
