The Great Digital Swindle...

[tunalegs]

I think this is pretty close to the truth. When we buy our new shiny toys, we've not really been led to believe anything that isn't true. We've simply allowed ourselves to be indoctrinated to believe that newer is better, higher numbers are better, and owning old/outdated stuff somehow reflects badly upon us.

Companies have not lied to us (generally), they just know they can get people to buy stuff by pushing a few (metaphorical) buttons.

Sort of a funny thing, a friend convinced me to watch a Japanese anime series where the main character is "tricked" into becoming a hero, but at the expense of serious negative consequences. When she confronts the antagonist and asks why he didn't mention that there would be negative consequences - he responds simply that she didn't ask him.

It is not technically a lie, but companies never tell us the downside of buying and using their products, unless they must legally do so. So in a way it is still sort of a trick, a swindle. Suppose when you went to buy a car, the dealer was required to tell you what the impact on the environment would be, and what sort of danger you might put yourself or others in by driving? Suppose they had to be up front about the real costs of maintenance, insurance, and resale value...😱

Admittedly, you probably don't run the risk of serious bodily injury using a DSLR, but the comment about companies not lying made me think about how often we're sold on something we might not be if companies had to tell us what the downsides were!

 

[OurManInTangier]

Deception is hardly the issue. We are (generally) set an example of consumerism from a very early age and we just follow the lead given by our peers.

We don't actually need to be deceived ... we've been programmed to obey! 😀

I disagree. Unless you've been intentionally deceived or outright lied to by the company/individual trying to sell you something then we should all be aware of the (general) ways in which we are 'herded' as consumers. I think the vast majority of people are fully aware that, for instance, supermarkets are investing large sums of money to discover and understand Consumer Behaviour & Psychology. Eye Level Marketing, Aisle Order, Product Grouping, Canned Smells (e.g. the Bakery,) placing essentials at the back of the store in order to force the consumer to walk past all the other products, Irrational Pricing, Shuffling (moving stock from where it normally is to somewhere else to confront the consumer with new stock) and Point of Sale Displays are all things that the majority of individuals are aware of as sales tactics. This strategy clearly works on the consumer but as a 'consumer' may perhaps be more accurately described as a statistic than an individual that isn't a great surprise.

As an individual we have our own knowledge of the various sales strategies, we have a knowledge of our own needs and desires and we have a personal decision to make. Unless of course we're quite happy to allow ourselves to be shepherded from decision to decision.🙂

Stewart mentioned earlier the recent issues in the UK with the miss selling of Financial Products and clearly this becomes an issue where you could accuse the seller of some level of deception. However when we are given fairly clear information, perhaps the clear technical specifications of a camera, its price and the opportunity to hold it in a store and then we buy it, surely its not consumerism that gave our debit card to the sales assistant but our self.

We all make our decisions. One day, whilst paying for my fuel at the garage, that Snickers bar and the tic tacs are suddenly on the counter along with my card. The next time they stay on the shelf. Sometimes you give in and sometimes you don't, but it is my (our) choice and its only when deceived by less honest forces that I think the consumer can be absolved of all (or perhaps just 'most') responsibility.

Perhaps I'm becoming a grumpy, ageing 'git' having recently turned forty but I seem to be amazed by how often we seem happy to give up our own responsibilities...and then whinge when we're left with so few decisions to make for ourselves. Though that may well be another conversation entirely.🙂

 

[bobbyrab]

We are complicit in this you know, we are not idiots swayed back and forth by what we're told by marketing departments, advertising and marketing are only effective if you desire the product in the first place.
The vast vast majority of advertising and marketing you are exposed to on a daily basis has no influence over you whatsoever as your not desirous of the product. Likewise no matter how well a product is marketed, if it's crap it's crap and it doesn't sell.
If like most men handbags are not your thing (Back Ally excluded), then It's very easy to be scathing of the girl with the designer handbag and paint the picture of the foolish sheep driven into the pen by the slick marketing gurus, but girls like nice bags, and if they didn't like the bag or it wasn't well made the label itself wouldn't be enough.
In contrast our own purchases are carefully considered and well reasoned investments, sure a Noctillux would buy a lot of bags, but look at my bokeh Flickr stream, and..... it goes to 1.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Admittedly, you probably don't run the risk of serious bodily injury using a DSLR. . .

Not in the short term, perhaps, but look at the size and weight of the bloody things and consider the health of your back in the long term...

It's a bit like my hearing. After 47 years of riding motorcycles, I now wear ear-plugs quite often. Did I wear them when I was a young man...?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . As an individual we have our own knowledge of the various sales strategies, we have a knowledge of our own needs and desires and we have a personal decision to make. Unless of course we're quite happy to allow ourselves to be shepherded from decision to decision. . . .
Perhaps I'm becoming a grumpy, ageing 'git' having recently turned forty but I seem to be amazed by how often we seem happy to give up our own responsibilities...and then whinge when we're left with so few decisions to make for ourselves. Though that may well be another conversation entirely.🙂

Dear Simon,

First para: Which is precisely why people need to be reminded of, and educated about, the strategies you describe. Really, these things should be taught in schools. Are they? I'd be surprised. The more so, given the way in which some people (whom you'd think were old enough to know better) howl and snivel when anyone attempts to criticize dominant paradigms. As pdh pointed out earlier, maybe they're terrified of their own inadequacies.

Second para: Yes, yes, yes. And it's not just responsibilities, cf. the mass whinge at the disappearance of Kodachrome. Yes, I stopped buying it. Yes, I was sorry when it was discontinued. And yes, I was as responsible for its disappearance as everyone else who stopped buying it, so I didn't really feel I could pretend that wicked, vicious Kodak was targeting decent, upstanding photographers out of sheer vindictiveness.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

We are complicit in this you know, we are not idiots swayed back and forth by what we're told by marketing departments, advertising and marketing are only effective if you desire the product in the first place.
The vast vast majority of advertising and marketing you are exposed to on a daily basis has no influence over you whatsoever as your not desirous of the product. Likewise no matter how well a product is marketed, if it's crap it's crap and it doesn't sell.
If like most men handbags are not your thing (Back Ally excluded), then It's very easy to be scathing of the girl with the designer handbag and paint the picture of the foolish sheep driven into the pen by the slick marketing gurus, but girls like nice bags, and if they didn't like the bag or it wasn't well made the label itself wouldn't be enough.
In contrast our own purchases are carefully considered and well reasoned investments, sure a Noctillux would buy a lot of bags, but look at my bokeh Flickr stream, and..... it goes to 1.

... I feel you are being too generous there, and possibly a bit complacent ... advertising and marketing is as I think you are saying fairly incidental to the general public (myself included) whereas to the advertisers selling us stuff it's their only reason to exist all they do week in week out ... it's an unequal relationship we simply don't have an understanding of what's being done to us, so we can't possibly make reasoned choices.

... It's a bit like this Terms and Conditions rigmarole at the online checkout these days ... corporations spend thousands to have lawyers draw-up overly complex Terms and Conditions to make them impenetrable to a normal person, well without councils' opinion ... and of course we read and understand them each time we buy something? ... na, we check the tick-box and move on, life's too short so we hope for the best, it's just another area were the customer is at a disadvantage.

 

[bobbyrab]

Maybe I am being over generous, but certainly some are being over critical. Manufacturers have to advertise if for no other reason than to let you know they're products are available, and because they're competitors will, so they have to keep up, I'm sure most would gladly spend less if it didn't lose market share.
We don't read T&C on iTunes downloads because your fairly sure it won't result in a time share in Spain, you would however be best to give a once over to a life insurance policy.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . ... It's a bit like this Terms and Conditions rigmarole at the online checkout these days ... corporations spend thousands to have lawyers draw-up overly complex Terms and Conditions to make them impenetrable to a normal person, well without councils' opinion ... and of course we read and understand them each time we buy something? ... na, we check the tick-box and move on, life's too short so we hope for the best, it's just another area were the customer is at a disadvantage.

Dear Stewart,

No, I usually read them. One of my lecturers at law school told a wonderful story of starting to read a hire purchase contract (for a refrigerator -- odd how details can stick in your mind for more than 40 years) before signing it, only to have it snatched back with a sharp, "You're not supposed to READ it!"

Generally they fall into six groups. First, there are the ones I won't sign because I refuse to deal with people that vicious, and who think I'm that stupid. Second, there are the ones I know to be unenforceable as a matter of law. Third, there are the ones I am confident they would not dare pursue because they'd look such fools if they did. Fourth, there are the ones where the penalties for non-compliance are trivial, such as being thrown off an internet forum. Fifth, there are the ones where the likelihood of getting caught is negligible. Some software licenses fall into this group, where they don't fall into one or more of the other ones. Sixth (a small residual category) there are the ones that I don't mind signing.

Cheers,

R.

 

[hepcat]

Perhaps more insidious still is the trivialisation of discussion ... e.g. along the lines of "hahaha I love my GAS! 🙂🙂🙂 Don't worry about it!!🙂🙂".
Practiced consistently, it can soon derail any useful dialogue.
(This persistent trivialisation - even of overtly non-political discussions about the practice of photography itself - has finally triggered me to abandon another forum where I have been posting regularly for years)

I wonder about how both the ad hominen and trivialising responses might be driven by not only unwillingness or inability, but fear: What if my unexamined motives for consuming turn out to be be completely unjustifiable to myself?

Or perhaps thinking has just become very unfashionable?

An excellent analysis. And thinking HAS become very unfashionable in the Western societies.

In the mid-1990s I was attending a seminar in Central California. I was visiting with a friend of mine who knew of a mutual acquaintance from my years on Guam. This acquaintance happened to be the heir to a hotel fortune, and the family owned a famous villa on 17 mile drive in Monterrey. My friend called the acquaintance, and we ended up on a private tour of this amazing property. The carriage house had seven stalls, all of them filled with a variety of cars not the least of which was a Lamborghini and a Lincoln Town Car.

Out in front, in the driveway though, sat an Army surplus, olive drab-painted '65 Chevy Malibu wagon with one door caved in. I was perplexed and wondered who it belonged to, so I asked what it was about. The mutual acquaintance told me it was his daily driver.

Now I was REALLY perplexed. The guy has a Lincoln, a Lamborghini and several other cars to choose from... his family is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and he drives this? I stuttered a little searching for the right question and he chimed in and said, "It only costs me 15 cents a mile to drive it."

Here is a guy who has money. A LOT of money, and he says, "It only costs me 15 cents a mile to drive it." It was at that moment that I understood what wealthy people know that I didn't. Not spending money is just as solid a way to preserve wealth as making it.

It was also, at that moment, that I realized how outrageous our consumerism had gotten, even by then. And, since then I have done my best to acquire the consumer goods I want at the best possible price. I also buy consumer goods that demand a high resale when I'm done with them whenever I can. I seldom buy new, preferring someone else to eat the initial depreciation on whatever the item is.

I'm not poor, neither do I consider myself wealthy, but I live comfortably with quality goods in my life for which I am grateful, and which I'd never have been able to afford had I not had that experience of hearing "It only costs me 15 cents a mile to drive it" in that context of wealth and luxury.

I am grateful for those who live on the bleeding edge of technology and who are willing to buy high and sell low, because that's when I'm able to buy technology a generation or two back which serves me well. In the digital world, I've been able to re-sell my equipment before it had no value and in some cases actually make money on it after using it for a couple of years. I've always wanted an M4-P and got the brochure when they were new. I managed to get one this year, free. I bought it in a kit with a Summicron, motor winder, and MR-4 at a very reasonable price. I managed to sell the lens, winder, and meter for what I paid for the kit; hence a free M4-P.

While thinking may be unfashionable, it is necessary so we don't get swept up by advertising claims. I don't buy brand-advertising, I buy products as I need them, and I do my best to be able to "drive" all of my consumer goods for "15 cents a mile."

 

[Sparrow]

Maybe I am being over generous, but certainly some are being over critical. Manufacturers have to advertise if for no other reason than to let you know they're products are available, and because they're competitors will, so they have to keep up, I'm sure most would gladly spend less if it didn't lose market share.
We don't read T&C on iTunes downloads because your fairly sure it won't result in a time share in Spain, you would however be best to give a once over to a life insurance policy.

... possibly, but then I'm three and a half years into suing a breach of contract and I'm a tad jaded ... and a good bit poorer for my trouble

 

[Sparrow]

Dear Stewart,

No, I usually read them. One of my lecturers at law school told a wonderful story of starting to read a hire purchase contract (for a refrigerator -- odd how details can stick in your mind for more than 40 years) before signing it, only to have it snatched back with a sharp, "You're not supposed to READ it!"

Generally they fall into six groups. First, there are the ones I won't sign because I refuse to deal with people that vicious, and who think I'm that stupid. Second, there are the ones I know to be unenforceable as a matter of law. Third, there are the ones I am confident they would not dare pursue because they'd look such fools if they did. Fourth, there are the ones where the penalties for non-compliance are trivial, such as being thrown off an internet forum. Fifth, there are the ones where the likelihood of getting caught is negligible. Some software licenses fall into this group, where they don't fall into one or more of the other ones. Sixth (a small residual category) there are the ones that I don't mind signing.

Cheers,

R.

... I always take profesional advice on anything important, that way I'm covered by their professional indemnity ... dosen't work, see above

P. S. ... or buy in a shop, then unless they draw ones' attention to the T&C they don't apply in law I understand

 

[tunalegs]

Here is a guy who has money. A LOT of money, and he says, "It only costs me 15 cents a mile to drive it." It was at that moment that I understood what wealthy people know that I didn't. Not spending money is just as solid a way to preserve wealth as making it.

Well partly. Wealthy people know not to put money into anything that won't make them money. The richest person I've known who actually worked for it (I've had two other millionaires interfere in my life to some degree but they got their money through death or divorce) was a stingy, miserable sod. If there was something they could throw money into that would pay them back, they had all the money in the world. But if it was something like a birthday present? Oh the horror - too expensive! 😀 They never spent a dollar if there wasn't something in it for them.

 

[hepcat]

Well partly. Wealthy people know not to put money into anything that won't make them money. The richest person I've known who actually worked for it (I've had two other millionaires interfere in my life to some degree but they got their money through death or divorce) was a stingy, miserable sod. If there was something they could throw money into that would pay them back, they had all the money in the world. But if it was something like a birthday present? Oh the horror - too expensive! 😀 They never spent a dollar if there wasn't something in it for them.

Generosity is an individual decision, but I thought my point was salient in terms of the consumerism merry-go-round... corporations separating individuals from their money for the purposes of corporate profits and ways to mitigate that cycle if you want to.

 

[pdh]

As pdh pointed out earlier, maybe they're terrified of their own inadequacies.

I was thinking rather existentially: of the bowel-wrenching terror of realising that one's assumptions about one's own beliefs and motivations are baseless; that one is mostly being controlled rather than in control (not to be taken in a "conspiratorial" way - there's no suggestion of an Illuminati/NWO/Bilderberg/green space lizard theory here ... though sometimes when I see the activities of the giant US corporations or NSA/GCHQ, I do feel a batsqueak of wonder about who thinks all this stuff up)

We (in the most general sense) work one way, make some mistakes, fix some of them, go on to make some more mistakes.

There's not much to argue with in that (it's certainly true of me), but I'm not clear how it bears on the current discussion. Do you mean that capitalism is somehow proceeding towards perfection, or the opposite? Or that the World just sort of bumbles along as best it can? Or something else?

It's always fun, by the by, to hear someone like Cameron talk about the need for "moral capitalism" ... it's a bit like demanding ethical smallpox or compassionate typhoid.

 

[Keith]

Keith, I beg to disagree! The programming is the deception. It is the post-war great deceipt; do you need someting or want something?

In 'improving our lot' we have, with each succesive generation, hardened the deceipt into the very life blood of 'Western Capitalism' which we then have peddled to the rest of the world and they too are clamouring to be 'deceived'

Oh I agree Alistair ... the deception is in the programming!

 

[Roger Hicks]

I was thinking rather existentially: of the bowel-wrenching terror of realising that one's assumptions about one's own beliefs and motivations are baseless; that one is mostly being controlled rather than in control (not to be taken in a "conspiratorial" way - there's no suggestion of an Illuminati/NWO/Bilderberg/green space lizard theory here ... though sometimes when I see the activities of the giant US corporations or NSA/GCHQ, I do feel a batsqueak of wonder about who thinks all this stuff up)
. . .
It's always fun, by the by, to hear someone like Cameron talk about the need for "moral capitalism" ... it's a bit like demanding ethical smallpox or compassionate typhoid.

Para 1: Yes, I understood that. I just didn't take the time to agree with you at sufficient length. By "inadequacies" I meant, indeed, what you say in your first sentence.

Para 2: Well, capitalism can be tempered with social democracy, so you can get different flavours of capitalism, ranging from social democratic capitalism (capitalism as if people mattered or pre-Thatcher British Conservatism from 1945 onwards), to "red in tooth and claw" capitalism (Thatcher et seq)

In a true free-market economy, for example, legislation preventing children working in factories would be repealed; university degrees would be openly sold, without the pretence of going to university or taking examinations; and the same could be done with justice: just buy the judge.

True, all these things happen, but at least they're nominally illegal.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sparrow]

... I was reading this, and it reminded me of this thread

 

[henri klein]

It occurred to me this morning, whilst reading through the Nikon Df thread, that people were taking fantastic digital photographs ten years ago with cameras which you can barely give away these days. Nevertheless, many of us seem to be salivating like Pavlov's dogs as each new multi-thousand pound/dollar/euro camera body is released, even though the actual impact on the quality of our photography is likely to be negligible at best. Why is that? Are we all slaves to the photographic industry's marketing people? I suppose we must be.

never been taken. I despise digital cams.

 

[CameraQuest]

It occurred to me this morning, whilst reading through the Nikon Df thread, that people were taking fantastic digital photographs ten years ago with cameras which you can barely give away these days. Nevertheless, many of us seem to be salivating like Pavlov's dogs as each new multi-thousand pound/dollar/euro camera body is released, even though the actual impact on the quality of our photography is likely to be negligible at best. Why is that? Are we all slaves to the photographic industry's marketing people? I suppose we must be.

The same is true of most any consumer product, include the cars and TVs of ten years ago.

Manufacturers of any product need to market new and improved to keep the sales and factories going. No surprise or swindle there.

We have a choice about buying that new and improved widget.

Stephen

 

[icebear]

How about a SWINDLE POLL for every new camera that's being released?

Just a simple YES or NO vote.
If it's more swindle than not, nobody is allowed to buy it 😉 😀.