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Before advertising was as widespread and exploited as it is today, people build businesses around service, quality, worth of mouth and recommendations. That res

Before advertising was as widespread and exploited as it is today, people build businesses around service, quality, worth of mouth and recommendations. That resulted in some truly great things, and it seems that with advertising we've lost a lot of that. Ultimately it's probably to do with people being cheap and advertisements just exploit that. At least for me personally, it has come to the point where I don't believe advertisements anymore.

ethbr0 5y ago
The reason we've lost that, fundamentally, seems to be the outsourcing and centralization of manufacturing. A brand used to mean something. Now, it's a sticker covering the "Made in X" label, to arbitrage the difference between customer goodwill and actual manufacturing costs. It's pervasive throughout the grocery store and department stores, but to me McDonald's is the poster child. Ostensibly you're getting a "McDonald's meal", but what that fundamentally means is you're getting minimal-cost food, manufactured as centrally as possible, with a bare minimum of prep done in the store. Drop shipping and popup social media brands are the ultimate realization of this. If a brand means nothing, why shouldn't I just fabricate one, leverage the same supply chain, and compete on advertising alone?
scarface74 5y ago
At what point has media not been supported by advertising in the last 100+ years? How would I have heard about anything computer related in the 80s in the small town south about computer products? Even today I would have never heard about Backblaze, Linode etc if it weren’t for podcast ads. I wouldn’t hear about local concerts, events etc either.
- hvidgaard 5y ago
  Quite the opposite for me. As a child I grew up in a "small" town of 30-40.000 I think, I would go to the store to see what was new including computers, I would swing by the local cinema to see what was coming. I don't recall advertising was in paid newspapers either. I would know about books from the library. It was far less advertisement driven and all about reputation and recommendations from experts, professionals and store owners.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    In the 80s when I grew up. The library had two books on AppleSoft Basic. I learned the intricacies of the //e from InCider and buying books and software based on sending in a card in the back of the magazine where you could circle the products you were interested in. The store owners were far from “experts”. They were either minimum wage workers at Sears who were in school or sales people selling to businesses.

ethbr0 5y ago

The reason we've lost that, fundamentally, seems to be the outsourcing and centralization of manufacturing. A brand used to mean something. Now, it's a sticker covering the "Made in X" label, to arbitrage the difference between customer goodwill and actual manufacturing costs. It's pervasive throughout the grocery store and department stores, but to me McDonald's is the poster child. Ostensibly you're getting a "McDonald's meal", but what that fundamentally means is you're getting minimal-cost food, manufactured as centrally as possible, with a bare minimum of prep done in the store. Drop shipping and popup social media brands are the ultimate realization of this. If a brand means nothing, why shouldn't I just fabricate one, leverage the same supply chain, and compete on advertising alone?

scarface74 5y ago

At what point has media not been supported by advertising in the last 100+ years? How would I have heard about anything computer related in the 80s in the small town south about computer products? Even today I would have never heard about Backblaze, Linode etc if it weren’t for podcast ads. I wouldn’t hear about local concerts, events etc either.

hvidgaard 5y ago
Quite the opposite for me. As a child I grew up in a "small" town of 30-40.000 I think, I would go to the store to see what was new including computers, I would swing by the local cinema to see what was coming. I don't recall advertising was in paid newspapers either. I would know about books from the library. It was far less advertisement driven and all about reputation and recommendations from experts, professionals and store owners.
- scarface74 5y ago
  In the 80s when I grew up. The library had two books on AppleSoft Basic. I learned the intricacies of the //e from InCider and buying books and software based on sending in a card in the back of the magazine where you could circle the products you were interested in. The store owners were far from “experts”. They were either minimum wage workers at Sears who were in school or sales people selling to businesses.