this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
206 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37738 readers
520 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That was awesome, thanks for sharing.
I fully get what you're saying and I think I know a thing or two about how lifestyle branding consumes people's lives to the point where they're fully absorbed.
Social media platforms seem to be by far the worst offenders of stimulating this kind of addiction (let's just name it for what it is).
Coming from a background of designing products, as opposed to selling them I tend to be focused on product representation, rather than selling an idea. Which is not actually the route to making stupid amounts of money.
You've convinced me that marketing is definitely part of the problem. Here in the Netherlands they've recently (about two years ago) relaxed some legislation on online gambling (gambling itself is legal, just the ads weren't) and since we've seen a surge of ads on television and social media featuring sports icons and influencers. The result has been a giant increase in profits, which directly corelates to figures of increased debt, prevalent mostly in young adults. I firmly believe this is toxic and needs to be fixed asap.
If you do decide to host a Q&A I'll be sure to have a look for more cool insights.
Thank you very much! I appreciate the acknowledgment.
You‘re correct and then some, Social Media is more or less a giant ad platform, at least conventional ones are. The fediverse has no real „ads“ but a lot of jerks try to advertise for free here. That’s hardly gonna be a real problem (I hope).
Product design sounds like a cool job as well. Still tech or something else entirely?
The issue with marketing is precedent:
From there we have precedent that we are allowed to lie „a little bit“. Not keep information for us like a good salesman but outright misrepresent the product.
The same goes for all other products. You see a motor drill in a hardware store prospect: 39,99* Farther down the page, it says „if you are gold member [and we sell your data], otherwise 139.99.“
And there you have it again, precedent. If we allow giant companies to market like this, we shouldn’t wonder why they bullshit us in every other alley (taxes, labor laws, environment).
Thanks for encouraging me to make a q&a, will definitely let you know if I do. But since you‘re seemingly one of three people on the internet who is open to learn stuff, how would you think some kind of podcast/blog? Would you participate?