4 ms·

When I look at the likes of Rockefeller, Ford or Edison and compare them with today's success stories at Apple, Facebook or Wall Street, the difference I see, l

by Sven7 12y ago

When I look at the likes of Rockefeller, Ford or Edison and compare them with today's success stories at Apple, Facebook or Wall Street, the difference I see, lies in whose weakness they exploit to reach the top. Today's success stories are all about exploiting every possible customer weakness, while in the good old days it was about exploiting competitor weakness. Whether its exploiting people's weaknesses to get them to mindlessly consume content to sell ads, or cleverly misguiding them about mortgages and student loans, or tying social standing and aspiration(in the developing world) to the latest trinket in a phone...it makes me conclude that the best way to build the next superstar company, is to find a human weakness as yet unexploited in the ever growing bountiful list that cognitive and behavioral psychology are just beginning to provide and go to town.

vvpan 12y ago
I agree. But you are forgetting another exploitation - of the worker, which back in the day was the norm. Perhaps still is, depends on how you look at it.
Zigurd 12y ago
You are romanticizing the past. Take a look at the ads in LIFE magazines from the first half of the 20th c. There's consumer exploitation going on that would make Zynga blush.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  Yeah, blush in embarrassment at how blatant, transparent and ineffective it was. It was very unsubtle - and shocking to us now because of that. But they still thought that things were best sold by convincing people that their product was the best. And many though that actually being the best was a cost efficient way to convince people of that. Pretty childish by todays standards.
orbifold 12y ago
In the good old days they also exploited their workers a fair amount, hired private security to break strikes (e.g. Homestead strike). Nowadays the most profitable businesses need nearly no unskilled labor or if they do, it is usually the subcontractors that mistreat their employees.
mwfunk 12y ago
I think you're deeply romanticizing the past, certainly with respect to Henry Ford and likely with respect to Rockefeller or Edison. I could be misinterpreting but it sounds like you're basically saying that today's companies get where they are due to predatory marketing, whereas in the Good Old Days everybody just worked hard and did their best and competed solely on quality and price. That may be an unfairly reductive paraphrasing of your point though. I do think it's fair to say that nowadays marketers have far more different ways to reach people, and they have to be far more nuanced (or sneaky, if you prefer) in their messaging. I think the latter is due to it being much harder to outright lie to consumers, for legal reasons but also because there are many more ways for those consumers to discover and publicize sleazy advertising claims. 100 years ago cigarette companies advertised that you needed to become a smoker because it's healthy for you (they had nothing to back that up with, and plenty of evidence to the contrary). Those were the Good Old Days that you're fondly remembering here. Companies lied through their teeth about their products and each other. Marketers still lie, of course, they just can't be quite so blatant about it. But just because this is true doesn't mean that things are worse now than they were before. I also wouldn't be so quick to blame people doing things you don't approve of (like taking crappy loans or buying expensive phones as status symbols) as being the result of an evil marketer exploiting a helpless prole. Actual predatory marketing is something that needs to be monitored and regulated, but there is also no shortage of people with lousy values who continually make terrible life choices. There probably always will be. Take away all marketing (not just the blatantly predatory kind, but also the lifestyle marketing that it sounds like you also consider evil), and many of those same people would simply be finding other activities to engage in that you would also not approve of. Ultimately, who are we to say that some idiot spending way too much money for a status symbol he doesn't need should be prevented from spending his money however he wants? It's a very slippery slope to go down. Once you break open that philosophical seal, you may discover that there's lots of other people who don't approve of something that you do, who also want to tell you what to do in order to save you from yourself. They don't have to be right about it, there just has to be enough of them who agree that you are spending your money inappropriately or reading the wrong books or engaging in dangerous hobbies or whatever.

by Sven7 12y ago

vvpan 12y ago

I agree. But you are forgetting another exploitation - of the worker, which back in the day was the norm. Perhaps still is, depends on how you look at it.

Zigurd 12y ago

You are romanticizing the past. Take a look at the ads in LIFE magazines from the first half of the 20th c. There's consumer exploitation going on that would make Zynga blush.

freshhawk 12y ago
Yeah, blush in embarrassment at how blatant, transparent and ineffective it was. It was very unsubtle - and shocking to us now because of that. But they still thought that things were best sold by convincing people that their product was the best. And many though that actually being the best was a cost efficient way to convince people of that. Pretty childish by todays standards.

orbifold 12y ago

In the good old days they also exploited their workers a fair amount, hired private security to break strikes (e.g. Homestead strike). Nowadays the most profitable businesses need nearly no unskilled labor or if they do, it is usually the subcontractors that mistreat their employees.

mwfunk 12y ago

I think you're deeply romanticizing the past, certainly with respect to Henry Ford and likely with respect to Rockefeller or Edison. I could be misinterpreting but it sounds like you're basically saying that today's companies get where they are due to predatory marketing, whereas in the Good Old Days everybody just worked hard and did their best and competed solely on quality and price. That may be an unfairly reductive paraphrasing of your point though. I do think it's fair to say that nowadays marketers have far more different ways to reach people, and they have to be far more nuanced (or sneaky, if you prefer) in their messaging. I think the latter is due to it being much harder to outright lie to consumers, for legal reasons but also because there are many more ways for those consumers to discover and publicize sleazy advertising claims. 100 years ago cigarette companies advertised that you needed to become a smoker because it's healthy for you (they had nothing to back that up with, and plenty of evidence to the contrary). Those were the Good Old Days that you're fondly remembering here. Companies lied through their teeth about their products and each other. Marketers still lie, of course, they just can't be quite so blatant about it. But just because this is true doesn't mean that things are worse now than they were before. I also wouldn't be so quick to blame people doing things you don't approve of (like taking crappy loans or buying expensive phones as status symbols) as being the result of an evil marketer exploiting a helpless prole. Actual predatory marketing is something that needs to be monitored and regulated, but there is also no shortage of people with lousy values who continually make terrible life choices. There probably always will be. Take away all marketing (not just the blatantly predatory kind, but also the lifestyle marketing that it sounds like you also consider evil), and many of those same people would simply be finding other activities to engage in that you would also not approve of. Ultimately, who are we to say that some idiot spending way too much money for a status symbol he doesn't need should be prevented from spending his money however he wants? It's a very slippery slope to go down. Once you break open that philosophical seal, you may discover that there's lots of other people who don't approve of something that you do, who also want to tell you what to do in order to save you from yourself. They don't have to be right about it, there just has to be enough of them who agree that you are spending your money inappropriately or reading the wrong books or engaging in dangerous hobbies or whatever.