do u think the products of most corporates have no particula

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ollychan
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01 May 2019, 10:55 pm

do u think the products of most corporates have no particular value of any sort.. like a sneaker is just a shoe , and cosmetics is just face powder and stuff , and ketchup is just tomato sauce, even amazon looks like a big yard sale (except its reserach facility) , like when u strip all the packaging brand off there isnt anything particular interesting going on that much.



SaxNerd
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01 May 2019, 11:03 pm

For the vast majority of stuff out there, yes I think so, things are worth what people will pay for them. I do some work as a 'stocktaker' (not a bad aspie job incidentally, you just count things) and a lot of the time I can't believe the amount of unnecessary rubbish that populates stores. I once counted 3127 chocolate bars at a local supermarket, there is no way all that is necessary.

This is the main reason why I like to shop at Aldi, and local fruit shops, butchers, etc., as they tend to focus more on the essentials and less on having 10 different brands of the same thing, which in some cases is actually the same product anyway.


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wrongcitizen
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01 May 2019, 11:24 pm

Some but not all. Only products can we can produce ourselves. We exchange money which we earn for everything without putting labor into producing it, and corporations often has a certain quality to their products and the capital to mass-produce it. Cars and phones could not be easily produced by many people but they are pretty much a requirement to live in most kinds of employment, while simpler items such as paper, clothing, food, water, housing, and lighting are things that could be produced by knowledgeable individuals.



KimD
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01 May 2019, 11:57 pm

A lot of the time, I do. That's one of the reasons my husband and I turn to Consumer Reports even if we're not looking to buy a specific item; they help differentiate the hype from the quality, and specify exactly what features they've examined and how.

The amount of junk we have in this world is overwhelming to me if I think about it enough, and I think it is to a lot of people, regardless of their neurology. Even though I'm not a very materialistic person and don't have a lot of possessions (by most American standards), I still feel befuddled by all the things that come rolling off assembly lines, and even the things that skilled artisans make by hand, because of their impact on the environment and the fact that even if I don't buy something, it's still out there. I can vote with my wallet, and reduce, reuse and recycle til the cows come home, but no one is going to stop making stuff!!

When it comes to the question of value, though, I can also consider that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," so if someone really finds great joy in their collection of whatevers, a stuffed animal brings comfort to someone in distress, or a pair of inexpensive sneakers that most people consider crap serves their purpose and fends off an injury, then those items may be quite valuable after all.

George Carlin made a decent point when he said, basically, that our own sh** is stuff and everyone else's stuff is sh**.



ollychan
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02 May 2019, 9:00 am

loreal is just face powder, chase is just lockers, amazon is storage room sales, converse is just a shoe



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02 May 2019, 9:06 am

"Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful" - William Morris.


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ollychan
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02 May 2019, 9:29 am

its just so weird corporate brands can be a word entry in a dictionary , like, ..



ollychan
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02 May 2019, 9:42 am



la_fenkis
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02 May 2019, 3:58 pm

At some point the industrial revolution came to satisfy all our needs but left us with a situation where we still needed jobs. Rather than readdressing the economic paradigm we launched into "market creation" in order to continue creating jobs that, along with marketing, came to blur the line between necessity, nicety, and frivolity of products. As we keep creating markets we've been disseminating marketing narratives that couch new products in increasingly symbolic narratives. And, for some, the narratives become primary concerns. For them it's no longer about quality shoes but rather it's about Nike vs Adidas vs [hot new designer brand with a seductive narrative].



shlaifu
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02 May 2019, 6:54 pm

ollychan wrote:
do u think the products of most corporates have no particular value of any sort.. like a sneaker is just a shoe , and cosmetics is just face powder and stuff , and ketchup is just tomato sauce, even amazon looks like a big yard sale (except its reserach facility) , like when u strip all the packaging brand off there isnt anything particular interesting going on that much.


A sneaker is just a shoe. A shoe, like anything else, has a use-value and an exchange-value.
Brands found a way to raise the exchange value by connecting the commodity with an image (initially, literally with an advertising image).
The brands spend most if their money on controlling the image, while the use value of a shoe stays just that.
There's no use value of a new pair to someone who owns a closet full of shoes. So this person only buys the image

In our society, most of us buy images, not shoes.


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la_fenkis
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02 May 2019, 7:41 pm

shlaifu wrote:
ollychan wrote:
do u think the products of most corporates have no particular value of any sort.. like a sneaker is just a shoe , and cosmetics is just face powder and stuff , and ketchup is just tomato sauce, even amazon looks like a big yard sale (except its reserach facility) , like when u strip all the packaging brand off there isnt anything particular interesting going on that much.


A sneaker is just a shoe. A shoe, like anything else, has a use-value and an exchange-value.
Brands found a way to raise the exchange value by connecting the commodity with an image (initially, literally with an advertising image).
The brands spend most if their money on controlling the image, while the use value of a shoe stays just that.
There's no use value of a new pair to someone who owns a closet full of shoes. So this person only buys the image

In our society, most of us buy images, not shoes.


"Image value" has been understood as sign-value. It's an addition to the use-value, exchange-value paradigm. Jean Baudrillard has a lot to say about it.



CockneyRebel
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02 May 2019, 11:03 pm

Amazon is my favourite site to shop on. I've bought a lot great stuff from Amazon. My Om Noms keep the nightmares away at night.


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02 May 2019, 11:22 pm

i still long to own a late 80s-early 90s cadillac sedan de ville. no other car floated over the roughest roads like they did [other than a citroen DS].