The Brand Age

busterarm

I can't respond to tzury's comment because it's already flagged and dead but I honestly don't think that's quite fair on this board. The very same people who would be flagging that comment wouldn't bat an eye at saying they won't read or support anything by folks like DHH, or a hundred other prominent tech figures who have committed some ideological-wrong. It's just a similarly heavy-handed reaction from the other side of the divide. I don't find anything wrong or downvotable about people voicing perfectly valid criticisms about pg, his opinions, who he associates with and signal-boosts...unless these standards you all want to apply wrt cancellation are "for thee and not for me".

7777777phil

Nike is a useful test case (1) here. Brand was the whole competitive moat for them and once athletic gear commoditized, then management spent five years cutting the things that sustain it: athlete relationships, premium positioning, product development. Each cut looked (somewhat) rational on its own but none of them were, taken together. (1) https://philippdubach.com/posts/nikes-crisis-and-the-economi... EDIT: Nevermind comments are apparently just a pg meta discussion..

ChicagoBoy11

His point of Omega doubling-down on the things that would progressively harder to establish a moat on made me think about what we have been seeing with higher ed. It seems the "smart ones" definitely read the book that making the "education better," in a world where it is mostly free, was a fool's errand, and now the margins that they all compete it stray far, far away from the quality of the schooling. I work in K-12, and see the same things happening here too. P.S.: It is odd to me to have such a length pg essay been up for such a long time with just a handful of comments. Did something happen? I would've expected a wealth of discussion on a post like this by now.

bogardon

Is it just me or are an increasing number of (high profile) people in the tech industry into luxury watches these days?

creeble

> So the only thing distinguishing one top brand from another was the name printed on the dial Respectfully disagree. Since the 60's (and one could argue, even long before that), watches are 1) fashion, and 2) male wealth-signaling fashion. That's it. Nothing more. And for males who subscribe to this wealth-signaling cult, they know from a long way away what watch brand is on that guy's wrist. Okay, today's brands signal maybe a little differently than just wealth. Casio G-Shock watches aren't substantially different than their non-G-Shock counterparts in any significant way, but they cost way more. The G-Shock brand signals... I dunno, sportsy-ness? Maybe it is closer to a pure fashion brand here. I think we've been in "The Brand Age" since the advent of advertising. There are plenty of products that have virtually no differentiation besides brand, and there (almost) always has been.

jgrahamc

" Because at Patek he'd encounter the most extreme brand age phenomenon: artificial scarcity. You can't just buy a Nautilus. You have to spend years proving your loyalty first by buying your way through multiple tiers of other models, and then spend years on a waiting list. " Strange game, the only winning move is not to play. I've heard other brands do this (Ferrari?) and, of course, there are lines outside "luxury" brands like Louis Vuitton. Why bother? PS I'll stick to my Casios: https://blog.jgc.org/2025/06/the-discreet-charm-of-infrastru...

nadis

> "Brand is what's left when the substantive differences between products disappear. But making the substantive differences between products disappear is what technology naturally tends to do. So what happened to the Swiss watch industry is not merely an interesting outlier. It's very much a story of our times." Really interesting parallel between decidedly traditional technology and today.

noemit

warren buffett always said brand was the only moat. only IP can be protected. Everything else can be replaced, rebuilt.

psychoslave

Brand are brittle. It takes a single CEO associated to some pedophile network or make a nazi salute and it's ready to plummet. If the business really mainly on the technical merits of the product/service, even blank brand is an option. Many brand as a façade to a single plant is a different tradeoff.

crowcroft

In almost every category meaningful differentiation is a myth. It sounds nice to tell yourself you've got it and talk about moats or whatever, but it misses the point. What people usually mean when they talk about differentiation is distinctiveness [1]. Design isn't a differentiator for these watches it's about being distinctive . At the end of the day when telling the time is commoditized, and expensive watches are just a status symbol it's all you've got. [1] - https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/differentiat...

benleejamin

I don't think the Brand Age is as bleak as this essay suggests. Branding is not inherently unproductive, nor is it guaranteed to produce worse watches. They may be larger and less accurate , but consumers still (evidently) find value in the brand. A Grand Seiko or a Nomos or a Patek is perhaps now even more interesting & identity-productive than a watch was in the 60s. As technologists I think we're prone to dismissing improvements that aren't engineering-backed. But all life is storytelling, and labeling that work as "button-pushing" is… dismissive, to say the least.

dzink

Hoping to add to this perspective: The ability to transfer a lot of money in the physical shape of brand watches costing 200k per piece may have added to their appeal. AppleTV’s show Friends and Neighbours upselling their value as Jon Hamm tries to steal them from neighbours may be product placement. But these were all tactics from the 50s and 60s where relatively few media sources meant you could buy your way into the hearts of the masses with an ads campaign. Today we have a massively accelerated pace of society burning through fads and information - largely due to social media. The artificial scarcity trick is no longer an MBA secret. A brand, especially an AI brand, can burn in and out of favor in days. Transparency in society helps maybe bring out authenticity. Advertising of the past was often “advertising to your weaknesses” and that game is over. If we can structure the transparency and apply it to politicians and other less transparent institutions that count on “Brand” to the list (especially ones with high margins and large networks) maybe the world will see true competition that benefits everyone more. Lack of transparency (and liqidity, and availability) are what make trust bubbles that distort markets.

itisit

> That turns out to be a profitable business though. He does not disappoint. Also, not buying the watch industry parable.

shoman3003

finally, a new essay. and coincidently, its about something i have been thinking about all week.

d_burfoot

Interesting historical anecdote: the Swiss became the world's best watchmakers because, in Protestant Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin, jewelry was banned as ostentation. But you were allowed to wear a watch - it was important to get to church and work on time - so people starting wearing expensive watches instead of jewelry.

multisport

Obviously not the main point, but I've been reading watch media online for over a decade now, I've read or heard this "Quartz Crisis" story hundreds of times and never ONCE read about the coincidence with the Bretton Woods agreement. Makes sense though, its basically oral history.

lkm0

Somebody's getting into watch collecting! Quartz watches were also developed in Switzerland: check out the story of the Beta: https://goldammer.me/blogs/articles/beta-21-history-guide

dworks

I watched the Macbook Neo launch video yesterday and while the product is not very exciting, the video has great production value and it showed this: People want to pay for marketing. Not that Apple's only appeal is marketing, Mac laptops certainly have pros over the bottom and mid tier Windows laptops. But having seen that video, and knowing that other have seen it, are aware of Apple and its positioning, makes people feel better while using and owning their devices. People absolutely want that feeling and they're willing to pay for it.

eykanal

I'm struck by the utilitarian mindset of this essay. What Paul so disparagingly refers to as "brand" can also be referred to as "art". People _want_ art, and will indeed pay good money for it. Said differently, people _value_ art enough to differentiate it from "optimal design", and indeed a subset of people will pay top dollar for a suboptimal but artistic design. It is possible to view the fact that capitalist markets can turn a desire for art, individuality, and "something special" into a business as a bad thing. I'm not entirely convinced that's particularly interesting, though... it seems just a localized restatement of a generic "capitalism is bad" take.

diego_moita

Because he focuses in the story of luxury watches, Graham sees only the brand tricks that work mostly for rich people. There are brands for non-rich: Linux is a very strong brand but virtually free and non-exclusive at all (think Android phones). Patriotism and country reputation might also be thought as brands. E.g. would Portugal's tourist boom happen without the Portuguese tarts popularity? Edit: my watch is a Pebble.