4 ms·

> People were telling each other about these. I've seen this argument a lot, especially by technically minded folks. When you say "telling each other" what do

by mbesto 5y ago

> People were telling each other about these. I've seen this argument a lot, especially by technically minded folks. When you say "telling each other" what do you mean exactly? Do you think businesses just magically get talked about with zero investment in marketing dollars? I get the sense that lots of people in the HN community don't realize when they read an article from <insert tech company engineering blog> that this is marketing dollars at work. > But as a rule it definitely appears to be. By your "rule", sure. I understand the gripe with marketing from the consumer perspective, but pretending is inherently evil because it (1) invades your personal attention and (2) you think people are going to organically talk about products or services they don't know exist is a pretty myopic view of marketing as a whole.

jacquesm 5y ago
> When you say "telling each other" what do you mean exactly? I don't think we need to discuss the meaning of words that are in the top 5000 commonly used dictionary words here. > Do you think businesses just magically get talked about with zero investment in marketing dollars? Yes. It's called word-of-mouth and it is how it has always been done.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > I don't think we need to discuss the meaning of words that are in the top 5000 commonly used dictionary words here. Good. We're on the same page then. Snarky response not required but okay. > Yes. It's called word-of-mouth and it is how it has always been done. I don't know where to start with how to respond, but I'll bite: Let's magically go back to the gold rush in the US. You're traveling from New York and arrive in San Francisco. You know nothing about products and services in that market. You walk into town and look for a general good store to buy some water. You ask a guy on the corner where the general store is and so you find the general store based on his help. Okay, so word of mouth. You want to prospect some gold and know you need to buy a pan. There are two gold prospecting material vendors in town, Gold Supply Inc and Acme Gold (but you don't know this because you're new to town). You walk through town looking for a vendor and notice a guy with a megaphone is yelling to the crowd about Gold Supply Inc offering better prices on pans. He is paid by Gold Supply to do this. This is marketing/advertising. So, no, this is not "how it's always been done" and its inconceivable to think any modern company doesn't spend money on advertising/marketing. I understand the grievances about having hundreds of thousands of megaphones in your face 24/7, but let's stop pretending the world's marketplaces can operate efficiently on word of mouth alone because that's what you're implying.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > You walk through town looking for a vendor and notice a guy with a megaphone is yelling to the crowd about Gold Supply Inc offering better prices on pans. Which may be true. Or not. And they may be crappy pans, or not. And that's my point: all that yelling just muddies the water, it's like a mountain of 'fake reviews' and no way to pick up the signal any more because of all of the noise. Marketing mostly lies.
    - mbesto 5y ago
      I don't understand your point? You think that the average person: - Be fully educated on every product and service available to them in every market they encounter - Spend the time to speak to N amount of people via word of mouth and understand how many N amount of conversations are required to have the confidence to buy the best product (in terms of value, feature set, price, etc.) for the item they're looking for - Discover products and services that they didn't know existed but may solve their problem in a novel way All without any marketing/advertising interaction? And that this is somehow going to magically make buying decisions more clear (i.e. not muddy)? Sorry but that is hilariously out of touch with reality...
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        > I don't understand your point? and > Sorry but that is hilariously out of touch with reality... are incompatible with each other.
        mbesto 5y ago
        I posed a bunch of clarifying statements to understand your point and instead of responding to them that's how you respond? Weird. I respect most, if not all, of your viewpoints on HN (even if we disagree), but dodging the meat of my questions and clarifying statements isn't helping with your argument.

by mbesto 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

> When you say "telling each other" what do you mean exactly? I don't think we need to discuss the meaning of words that are in the top 5000 commonly used dictionary words here. > Do you think businesses just magically get talked about with zero investment in marketing dollars? Yes. It's called word-of-mouth and it is how it has always been done.

mbesto 5y ago
> I don't think we need to discuss the meaning of words that are in the top 5000 commonly used dictionary words here. Good. We're on the same page then. Snarky response not required but okay. > Yes. It's called word-of-mouth and it is how it has always been done. I don't know where to start with how to respond, but I'll bite: Let's magically go back to the gold rush in the US. You're traveling from New York and arrive in San Francisco. You know nothing about products and services in that market. You walk into town and look for a general good store to buy some water. You ask a guy on the corner where the general store is and so you find the general store based on his help. Okay, so word of mouth. You want to prospect some gold and know you need to buy a pan. There are two gold prospecting material vendors in town, Gold Supply Inc and Acme Gold (but you don't know this because you're new to town). You walk through town looking for a vendor and notice a guy with a megaphone is yelling to the crowd about Gold Supply Inc offering better prices on pans. He is paid by Gold Supply to do this. This is marketing/advertising. So, no, this is not "how it's always been done" and its inconceivable to think any modern company doesn't spend money on advertising/marketing. I understand the grievances about having hundreds of thousands of megaphones in your face 24/7, but let's stop pretending the world's marketplaces can operate efficiently on word of mouth alone because that's what you're implying.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > You walk through town looking for a vendor and notice a guy with a megaphone is yelling to the crowd about Gold Supply Inc offering better prices on pans. Which may be true. Or not. And they may be crappy pans, or not. And that's my point: all that yelling just muddies the water, it's like a mountain of 'fake reviews' and no way to pick up the signal any more because of all of the noise. Marketing mostly lies.
  - mbesto 5y ago
    I don't understand your point? You think that the average person: - Be fully educated on every product and service available to them in every market they encounter - Spend the time to speak to N amount of people via word of mouth and understand how many N amount of conversations are required to have the confidence to buy the best product (in terms of value, feature set, price, etc.) for the item they're looking for - Discover products and services that they didn't know existed but may solve their problem in a novel way All without any marketing/advertising interaction? And that this is somehow going to magically make buying decisions more clear (i.e. not muddy)? Sorry but that is hilariously out of touch with reality...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > I don't understand your point? and > Sorry but that is hilariously out of touch with reality... are incompatible with each other.
      - mbesto 5y ago
        I posed a bunch of clarifying statements to understand your point and instead of responding to them that's how you respond? Weird. I respect most, if not all, of your viewpoints on HN (even if we disagree), but dodging the meat of my questions and clarifying statements isn't helping with your argument.