<story><title>Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spicyjpeg</author><text>I consider this phenomenon part of what I like to call the &amp;quot;Amazon syndrome&amp;quot;, even though Amazon is far from being the only culprit. As China started flooding the rest of the world with cheap but decent products mass-produced in a random factory in Shenzhen, people turned away from brands they used to trust and towards no-name options from the likes of &amp;quot;Kxbnheb&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ypknwoj&amp;quot; in order to save a buck. Eventually the big brands themselves had to lower the quality of their products to be able to compete with the generic products, which benefit greatly from economies of scale by virtue of being manufactured by multiple companies in massive quantities.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, targeted ads deployed at a large scale with flexible pricing models made it possible for not-so-reputable outfits to get their name in front of millions of people&amp;#x27;s eyes. While only huge companies with a good track record could get past the ad vetting team of a newspaper or TV channel, anybody and their dog can start a Facebook ad campaign for almost no money and then keep paying as the number of impressions scales up. If on one hand this democratized prestigious ad spots that used to be available exclusively to brands everyone already knows, on the other hand it also allowed random dropshipper nobodies to establish a presence as a &amp;quot;niche shop&amp;quot; of some sort and then end up selling you rebranded Chinese no-name products you might as well have bought directly from AliExpress for half the price with free shipping (or straight up scamming you).&lt;p&gt;As much as the HN bubble likes to see a level playing field where all companies are treated equally, I think it&amp;#x27;s good to have gatekeepers in the advertising industry. But, I get it, the tech giants are all about quantity-over-quality and Facebook&amp;#x27;s ad revenue would drop to basically nothing (by their standards) if they started vetting each ad campaign manually, so here we are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>figassis</author><text>It’s not true that established brands made cheaper products to compete. Their prices remained the same or got higher, but quality still suffered. It’s just greed, no complex reasoning required. I recently bought a gym bag from Nike. Feels super cheap, like I could have gotten it from Aliexpress. The zippers keep locking into the fabric. Feels completely disposable.&lt;p&gt;Bought a pair of running shoes from Skechers early last year, had to throw away this year because the soles got worn out and I kept getting injured on one foot because I was stepping unevenly.&lt;p&gt;I bought Skechers because I had once had a pair of sneakers that lasted me the entire 5y of college. No such luck now.&lt;p&gt;No reason, just greed.</text></comment>
<story><title>Everything advertised on social media is overpriced junk</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spicyjpeg</author><text>I consider this phenomenon part of what I like to call the &amp;quot;Amazon syndrome&amp;quot;, even though Amazon is far from being the only culprit. As China started flooding the rest of the world with cheap but decent products mass-produced in a random factory in Shenzhen, people turned away from brands they used to trust and towards no-name options from the likes of &amp;quot;Kxbnheb&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ypknwoj&amp;quot; in order to save a buck. Eventually the big brands themselves had to lower the quality of their products to be able to compete with the generic products, which benefit greatly from economies of scale by virtue of being manufactured by multiple companies in massive quantities.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, targeted ads deployed at a large scale with flexible pricing models made it possible for not-so-reputable outfits to get their name in front of millions of people&amp;#x27;s eyes. While only huge companies with a good track record could get past the ad vetting team of a newspaper or TV channel, anybody and their dog can start a Facebook ad campaign for almost no money and then keep paying as the number of impressions scales up. If on one hand this democratized prestigious ad spots that used to be available exclusively to brands everyone already knows, on the other hand it also allowed random dropshipper nobodies to establish a presence as a &amp;quot;niche shop&amp;quot; of some sort and then end up selling you rebranded Chinese no-name products you might as well have bought directly from AliExpress for half the price with free shipping (or straight up scamming you).&lt;p&gt;As much as the HN bubble likes to see a level playing field where all companies are treated equally, I think it&amp;#x27;s good to have gatekeepers in the advertising industry. But, I get it, the tech giants are all about quantity-over-quality and Facebook&amp;#x27;s ad revenue would drop to basically nothing (by their standards) if they started vetting each ad campaign manually, so here we are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sharkweek</author><text>I’ve got a take: I think the current gap in the market for a lot of product areas is “more expensive but high quality.”&lt;p&gt;I desperately want to spend more money on a product that will stand the test of time but it’s so hard to find them at times.&lt;p&gt;Sure there will always be a majority of shoppers who want the cheapest thing as fast as they can get it and they won’t mind if they have to buy 3 of them every year, but I think the market is going to start supporting a more artisanal approach for consumer goods as the pendulum swings the other way over the next decade (although current global finance which I won’t pretend to understand might make this a little trickier…)</text></comment>