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Or it means that naming something that clearly implies it does more than it actually does is just false advertising... I'm looking at you "autopilot."

emiliobumachar 6y ago
My pet peeve is the standard of writing "Buy" on the ad, "Buy" on the button, and "buy a license to use under the following terms" in the thousand word TOS document which no one reads. "Lease" would be more honest.
- soganess 6y ago
  Agreed! We are eroding the meaning of many words that we use to describe ownership and the exchange of goods + services. My sophomoric interpretation has always been that when your economy is shifting to being more service-centered that trend seems inevitable... but crud if it is not disconcerting.
WorldMaker 6y ago
Tesla's mistake there was not making it clear that was a "brand name"/"trade mark" rather than a description. If everywhere they were very careful in all their marketing with something like Tesla™ Autopilot® Cruise Control System style branding, they'd be in less hot water. "We call it Autopilot® because that is our registered brand mark, not because that is a complete and accurate description of its capabilities."
- Macha 6y ago
  It depends where you are. Certainly some mobile providers here got in trouble claiming that "Unlimited" was just the name of the package.
- gumby 6y ago
  That’s not a “mistake” it is deliberately deceptive.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    It's not even that deceptive from a technical standpoint: an airplane autopilot maintains course and speed, and nothing more. Tesla's autopilot maintains course (lane) and speed, and nothing more. It's in the common imagination that airplane autopilot, based on name alone is more autonomous than it is (you can't takeoff/land on autopilot in a plane, and a pilot isn't just napping during autopilot). A lot of people seem to imagine the joke version of autopilot from the movie Airplane! where an inflatable "pilot" takes over full control of the plane, when the reality is much simpler and less autonomous. The question remains if Tesla expected more goodwill from the common/popular imaginative view of the thing over the technical description, and I have no idea how "deliberate" that was. I also probably should have put a sarcasm/irony tilde on mistake as my post above was intended more as a joke than an honest attempt at problem solving.

emiliobumachar 6y ago

My pet peeve is the standard of writing "Buy" on the ad, "Buy" on the button, and "buy a license to use under the following terms" in the thousand word TOS document which no one reads. "Lease" would be more honest.

soganess 6y ago
Agreed! We are eroding the meaning of many words that we use to describe ownership and the exchange of goods + services. My sophomoric interpretation has always been that when your economy is shifting to being more service-centered that trend seems inevitable... but crud if it is not disconcerting.

WorldMaker 6y ago

Tesla's mistake there was not making it clear that was a "brand name"/"trade mark" rather than a description. If everywhere they were very careful in all their marketing with something like Tesla™ Autopilot® Cruise Control System style branding, they'd be in less hot water. "We call it Autopilot® because that is our registered brand mark, not because that is a complete and accurate description of its capabilities."

Macha 6y ago
It depends where you are. Certainly some mobile providers here got in trouble claiming that "Unlimited" was just the name of the package.
gumby 6y ago
That’s not a “mistake” it is deliberately deceptive.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  It's not even that deceptive from a technical standpoint: an airplane autopilot maintains course and speed, and nothing more. Tesla's autopilot maintains course (lane) and speed, and nothing more. It's in the common imagination that airplane autopilot, based on name alone is more autonomous than it is (you can't takeoff/land on autopilot in a plane, and a pilot isn't just napping during autopilot). A lot of people seem to imagine the joke version of autopilot from the movie Airplane! where an inflatable "pilot" takes over full control of the plane, when the reality is much simpler and less autonomous. The question remains if Tesla expected more goodwill from the common/popular imaginative view of the thing over the technical description, and I have no idea how "deliberate" that was. I also probably should have put a sarcasm/irony tilde on mistake as my post above was intended more as a joke than an honest attempt at problem solving.