Advertising is not a recent evolution of capitalism, it's a foundational piece of it. Whatever you do as a job would not exist if there was no one marketing it. This hostility seems insane.
“No advertisements” seems extreme to me. I want to know when a good band is playing at a local venue, or has an album out. I like hearing about new books, or a restaurant near me.
The absolutist position that “all ads are always bad” is a non-starter for me. Especially as long as we exist in a capitalist system. Small business, indie creators, etc. must advertise in some fashion to survive. It’s only the behemoths that could afford to stop doing it (ironically). I’ve never really understood why, e.g. Pepsi and Coke spend so much on advertising: most people already have a preference and I am skeptical that the millions they spend actually moves the needle either way. (“Is Pepsi okay?” “It absolutely is not.”)
>I’ve never really understood why, e.g. Pepsi and Coke spend so much on advertising
When was the last time you saw an ad for something non digital and you stopped everything and bought it or even made concrete plans to do so later ? Probably almost never right ? So why still so many ads ? More importantly, why is it still so profitable ?
Because much of the impact of advertising is sub conscious imprint rather than conscious action. Have you ever been in a grocery store and you needed to get something and picked a "random" brand ? Yeah, that choice may not have been so random after all.
Or perhaps you're sitting at home or work and have a sudden seemingly unprompted craving for <insert food place>. Yeah, maybe not so unprompted.
There are (and continue to be) millions of young people who do not yet have firm preferences. For the already faithful, their advertising is mostly about reminding them to consume more.
The early theorists of capitalism didn't imagine that advanced psychology (that didn't even exist back then) would be used to convince people to buy $product.
Messages of that sophistication are always dangerous, and modern advertising is the most widespread example of it.
The hostility is more than justified, I can only hope the whole industry is regulated downwards, even if whatever company I work for sells less.
A startup made for the purpose of acquisition was never a competitor. If you are willing to sell to the big player in your industry you are not competing, you are an opportunist. A startup that wants to compete will run very differently from a startup that wants to be purchased.
A big whale company that gobbles up some of the fifty startups that only have like 2% of the market total is not a competitive market at all.
>A startup made for the purpose of acquisition was never a competitor
You cannot get acquired unless you represent a percentage of market share, have IP which will lead to greater market share, and/or have employees who can expand market share for a product.
>A big whale company that gobbles up some of the fifty startups that only have like 2% of the market total is not a competitive market at all.
A big whale company performing that many M&As to little startups is essentially fueling future competitors. If I was an investor I would see that market as valuable for the unicorn breakthrough possibility or at least an eventual acquisition exit event.
> A big whale company performing that many M&As to little startups is essentially fueling future competitors.
What an absolute load. They are stamping out competition, concentrating market power, and making red oceans even redder. If you were an investor I wouldn’t give you my money to gamble with.
It's not a simple "acquisitions are good" or "acquisitions are bad" discussion. There is an ideal amount of M&A activity in an economy which is more than "no startup ever gets acquired" and less than "every startup is bought out by big tech". In recent years we have been closer to the first extreme, and very few startups have had exits of any kind.
Generally when running these kinds of tests you measure for further down the funnel metrics than sign ups. It's obvious sign ups would increase. In all the tests I've done around this, you look either at revenue or engagement over a longer term.
I’ve bought dozens of cords over the past decade that weren’t MFI certified and not have any issues. Do you think the top selling Lightning cables on Amazon or at your local bodega or convenience store paid Apple a fee?
Why is this even an argument? Lightning is not something obscure. You can go on Amazon now and find hundreds of cables that are not “MFI certified”. You can’t believe all of these Chinese cables are bothering with certification.
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