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I also wondering why this “People want the basics done well” cant be applied to the car industry. Manufactures are selling so advanced vehicles restyled every y

by vgurgov 17y ago

I also wondering why this “People want the basics done well” cant be applied to the car industry. Manufactures are selling so advanced vehicles restyled every year(and you are paying for that!)All that advanced systems for auto-ething and so on. While I just need good car that i can comfortable use for years… I dont really care if it will give me 21 or 22 mpg or 300 or 301 hp! Does anyone else want car produced by 37signals? ))) (Hope reposting my comment is ok, i am really interested what do HN audience think about that, sorry for bit offtopic)

steveklabnik 17y ago
Cars are a much larger signal of status to a wider group of people. Not to say that there wouldn't be a market for a 37signals car, but it'd be much smaller, I'd think.
- vgurgov 17y ago
  Hmm, to me shoes are signal of status for many ppl too, but still there is a huge group for whom car is a irreplaceable tool for transportation and delivery. I might be wrong, but my guess is that market of "budget cars" >> market of "status cars"
  - HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
    I dunno: quite a few budget cars are still marketed as status cars. When was the last time you saw a car ad that emphasized "buy me, I'm cheap" over everything else?
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      Kia is the only one I can think of.
      - btilly 17y ago
        I'm dating myself, but the example I think of is Volkswagen's famous "Think Lemon" campaign back for the old Volkswagen beetle.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    Even among those who for cars are irreplaceable, many make their decision entirely based on status.
  - cynicalkane 17y ago
    I'm going to use your post as an excuse to talk about shoes some more. Shoe shopping is a great example of pathological shopping behavior. Men will gladly drop $250 on a pair of Kenneth Coles, thinking the label means status and some kind of guarantee of quality. KCs are ugly and poorly made. The irony is that, when they're on your feet, nobody will know they're KCs and you spent $250 on them. But some people are so programmed to care about labels that this thought will not occur to them. At least designer jeans have exclusive copyrighted designs sewn right onto the ass pockets.
cynicalkane 17y ago
Both of these are examples of a bad signal to noise filter. People think they know what they want, but they don't. Compound this with the fact that nobody trusts salespeople (with good reason; they very often aren't trustworthy). "Car salesman" is sometimes used as an epithet. The main difference is that people like to pretend they are clueful about cars--partly for status purposes, as someone else noted--and go for the advanced features. Whereas not too many people know or care about the composition of a tennis racket. What particularly bothers me is the lack of attention paid to durability. This is the primary reason why things "ain't made like they used to be". Following the original article, using shoes as an example, there are really only two large makers of durable dress shoes left in the US, and only one of them makes shoes that aren't ugly (Alden).
- vgurgov 17y ago
  +1 i also mostly have durability as one of the top reqs in mind when shop for a new car. sadly you hardly can expect same quality from modern manufactures, while most of them pray you buying another product of theirs within 1-2 years
kscaldef 17y ago
Actually, I think the car industry has this pretty well figured out. The restyling is because (most) people don't want to have the same car as everyone else. Any given model comes in a dozen colors for the same reason, and because there are people who literally won't buy a car unless it comes in their favorite color (and base their decision on almost nothing else). "Auto-everything" is about "don't make me think" design. People just want to point their cars where they are going and be done. They don't want to worry about: did I lock all the doors? Did I dim my high-beams? When should I shift? Will I remember to pump the brakes in a skid?
philwelch 17y ago
Cars are probably the best example of this, because there's a lot of technology in cars and nobody cares about it. Cup holders are famously important. I'm reminded of something from this story about a guy who goes undercover as a car salesman to learn how the business really works: "As I prepared to leave, my editor offered me this advice: "When you're interviewing, don't tell them you know a lot about cars. They don't care. If they ask why you want to work there, just tell them you want to make a lot of money."" (http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/page001.html http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/page001....)

by vgurgov 17y ago

steveklabnik 17y ago

Cars are a much larger signal of status to a wider group of people. Not to say that there wouldn't be a market for a 37signals car, but it'd be much smaller, I'd think.

vgurgov 17y ago
Hmm, to me shoes are signal of status for many ppl too, but still there is a huge group for whom car is a irreplaceable tool for transportation and delivery. I might be wrong, but my guess is that market of "budget cars" >> market of "status cars"
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  I dunno: quite a few budget cars are still marketed as status cars. When was the last time you saw a car ad that emphasized "buy me, I'm cheap" over everything else?
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    Kia is the only one I can think of.
    - btilly 17y ago
      I'm dating myself, but the example I think of is Volkswagen's famous "Think Lemon" campaign back for the old Volkswagen beetle.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  Even among those who for cars are irreplaceable, many make their decision entirely based on status.
- cynicalkane 17y ago
  I'm going to use your post as an excuse to talk about shoes some more. Shoe shopping is a great example of pathological shopping behavior. Men will gladly drop $250 on a pair of Kenneth Coles, thinking the label means status and some kind of guarantee of quality. KCs are ugly and poorly made. The irony is that, when they're on your feet, nobody will know they're KCs and you spent $250 on them. But some people are so programmed to care about labels that this thought will not occur to them. At least designer jeans have exclusive copyrighted designs sewn right onto the ass pockets.

cynicalkane 17y ago

Both of these are examples of a bad signal to noise filter. People think they know what they want, but they don't. Compound this with the fact that nobody trusts salespeople (with good reason; they very often aren't trustworthy). "Car salesman" is sometimes used as an epithet. The main difference is that people like to pretend they are clueful about cars--partly for status purposes, as someone else noted--and go for the advanced features. Whereas not too many people know or care about the composition of a tennis racket. What particularly bothers me is the lack of attention paid to durability. This is the primary reason why things "ain't made like they used to be". Following the original article, using shoes as an example, there are really only two large makers of durable dress shoes left in the US, and only one of them makes shoes that aren't ugly (Alden).

vgurgov 17y ago
+1 i also mostly have durability as one of the top reqs in mind when shop for a new car. sadly you hardly can expect same quality from modern manufactures, while most of them pray you buying another product of theirs within 1-2 years

kscaldef 17y ago

Actually, I think the car industry has this pretty well figured out. The restyling is because (most) people don't want to have the same car as everyone else. Any given model comes in a dozen colors for the same reason, and because there are people who literally won't buy a car unless it comes in their favorite color (and base their decision on almost nothing else). "Auto-everything" is about "don't make me think" design. People just want to point their cars where they are going and be done. They don't want to worry about: did I lock all the doors? Did I dim my high-beams? When should I shift? Will I remember to pump the brakes in a skid?

philwelch 17y ago

Cars are probably the best example of this, because there's a lot of technology in cars and nobody cares about it. Cup holders are famously important. I'm reminded of something from this story about a guy who goes undercover as a car salesman to learn how the business really works: "As I prepared to leave, my editor offered me this advice: "When you're interviewing, don't tell them you know a lot about cars. They don't care. If they ask why you want to work there, just tell them you want to make a lot of money."" (http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/page001.html http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/page001....)