Discussion
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".
fragmede: You've got enough karma to click [vouch] on the comment if you think it shouldn't be dead. It's a bit of a rant, and while there are good points, they're lost in an emotional diatribe and, I mean, I feel for them, but I can also see why it was marked dead.
bogardon: Is it just me or are an increasing number of (high profile) people in the tech industry into luxury watches these days?
observationist: Status games are evergreen, and a lot of conspicuous consumption has fallen out of fashion. They've gotta flaunt their wealth and position somehow, and lambos are just too crypto-bro and gauche.It's also a sales tactic - a watch can be a schelling point if you're looking to network with someone who's into it.
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..
fragmede: The question is, in this new software world order, how much do brands matter vs what they've done vs network effects. I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber clone, and have none of the baggage of Cambridge Analytica, being owned by Elon Musk, or Travis kalanick of Greyball and S. Fowler legacy. An Uber driver-turned-dev could easily stand up a competitor and give way more money to the drivers simply by not having the overhead that Uber has with lawyers and executive salaries in this age of ChatGPT. Drivers will go to where there's riders and money, and riders will go to where there's drivers and cheaper rides. (and no drivers.) If someone needs an app idea to work on, it's the incumbents, without the suck. Facebook without "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."Because looking at Truth Social and Gab, people do adopt brands as part of their identity; and Uber but for drivers, or Facebook, without the spying, are trivial to make the software side of things on now. The fact that we haven't seen a dozen Uber competitors spring up is a testament to the fact that branding is a helluva moat. It's impossible to put a dollar value on it, but ChatGPT has no moat, except that it's Chat-fucking-GPT. The original chatbot and no matter how good Claude gets, it'll never be the original.
creeble: > So the only thing distinguishing one top brand from another was the name printed on the dialRespectfully 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.
tomhow: > 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 DHHYou have no way of knowing that. The guidelines against off-topic controversy and generic tangents apply, no matter who the author.
mikestew: 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…First off, you might be right some small number of cases, but I’d flag any and all rants such as this, regardless of the target.Second, for those as you describe, when they go off on an off-topic rant about DHH, someone else will conveniently flag it.
mrexcess: Anecdotally, in the trenches, I'm seeing a proliferation of Casio F-91w and AE-1200s. Maybe a counter response, lol.
JumpCrisscross: > they know from a long way away what watch brand is on that guy's wristNo, they didn’t. The makers of movements and makers of cases were separate. From far away you only know the case on the wrist. Not the movement. (I think Rolex was the first mass-market Swiss watch brand to vertically integrate. Patek may have been the first boutique.)
creeble: The movement isn't part of the brand. It's not part of the signal. The case/dial/sometimes band are the brand. And if you couldn't tell them apart, they wouldn't be any good at signaling, the entire point of wearing them.
kridsdale1: Gotta do something with those RSUs.I asked Claude to psychoanalyze why I got obsessed with them and it said I’m likely striving for something tangible that appeals to my engineer mindset that isn’t now obsolete in the age of AI. It’s my career’s existentialism.
JumpCrisscross: > I could have Claude code shit out a Facebook or Twitter clone, or an Uber cloneNo, you couldn’t. At best you’d turn out a video game simulating Uber. The idea that all of the business is in its software seems to be one Silicon Valley perennially relearns.
kridsdale1: They were. The Acquired podcast on Rolex really opened my eyes to this whole world. They defined the playbook in the 1930s that Apple repeated in the 80s and especially 2000s.
noemit: warren buffett always said brand was the only moat. only IP can be protected. Everything else can be replaced, rebuilt.
JumpCrisscross: > movement isn't part of the brand. It's not part of the signal. The case/dial/sometimes band are the brandThe movement was the expensive part. Audemars, Vacheron and Patek only made movements. The retailer would then put it in a case. That’s the entire point of PG’s essay.> if you couldn't tell them apart, they wouldn't be any good at signaling, the entire point of wearing themWhich might lead you to revise your hypothesis around why these watches were bought and made in the “golden age of watches.” Then as now there is such a thing as quiet luxury.
kridsdale1: Watches were understated in the 70s and turned more to gold in the 80s and a super proliferation of diversity in the 90s. 90s also had machismo Schwarzenegger sized cases for steroid men.2000s brought Hiphop bling culture to them which embraced maximalism with size further increasing and 85 diamonds and rubies being something worthy of showing.2010s austerity led to a retreat all the way to 1940s style trench and dress watches, cases back to 38mm.Post Covid, boldness is having a comeback. See the newest Planet Ocean. We are seeing bling and ostentatious gold again on celebrities this year.
kridsdale1: (I look over to the Coca-Cola Classic on my table that I picked because my taste buds prefer the classic brand)
stackghost: Your taste buds prefer the flavor, not the brand. If they changed their name to "Caramel Diet Fanta" but kept the recipe identical, you'd still enjoy the taste.The New Coke brand failed because people didn't like the taste, not the other way around.
organsnyder: Every time I drink a Coke (or any other soft drink), the brand's baggage (good and bad) is present. Unless you're doing a blind taste test, it's impossible to avoid that.
Herring: That sounds overly edgy. Tangibility has value, like buttons making a comeback in cars.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
shoman3003: finally, a new essay. and coincidently, its about something i have been thinking about all week.
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?
givemeethekeys: Also explains why German cars look the way they do today. Emphasizing the brand, so everyone can see it.
nicole_express: New Coke is a very interesting counterpoint to the brand focus, but on the other hand, they did at the time make a very big push of it being "New" Coke. Hard to tell what would've happened if they had just swapped out the formula.I drink Diet Coke, which is basically the same formula that became New Coke with chemical sludge instead of sugar, and it tastes pretty good to my tongue to the point where I drink it over Coke Zero, the one closer to "the real thing".
randallsquared: The whole point of pg's essay is that signaling transitioned into being the entire point of wearing them primarily in the 1980s.
the_pwner224: Huh, does that make intention the primary differentiatior between art and brand?I have a $120k BMW. I didn't buy it to show off; in fact I initially tried to hide it from my friends & acquaintances. But the design of the car was a big draw. And design (more specifically, lack of it) also immediately struck Audi off my list for consideration.Yet many people do buy BMWs just for the badge.The design/art is the same in either case - they're not manufacturing different vehicles for me and the other buyers.As an aside, BMW explicitly mentioned leaning into this with their new generation of products. The new 7/X7/XM (upper tier vehicles) intentionally have incredibly polarizing designs, and the mid-low tier have more normal designs. It's definitely offputting for many people (including me) but their market researched apparently showed that the higher tier of buyers wanted more unique and bold designs.
gaigalas: Chinese models are indeed cheaper!
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.
randallsquared: I think there are a number of reasons for this, but a couple come to mind. First, pg seems distant from YC now (to those not at office hours, I guess), and rarely publishes new essays, so he's rarely discussed or present in the minds of commenters here. Also, pg has the fortune or misfortune to write in a way that feels like some LLM writing, when he's writing well. I haven't gone back to earlier essays to check this notion, but I think he's going out of his way to break up thoughts into less likely sentence fragments, now, which give his recent writing a choppier, less well-written feel, with standalone sentences like> But you could recognize one from across the room.and> Or maybe not so lucky.and starting a paragraph with> For men, at least.
alephnerd: I've found the newer generation of founders understand that. The issue is they don't use HN anymore.I've noticed a significant tone and demographic shift on the site over the past 2-3 years with more Western Europeans and Midwesterners and fewer Bay Area+NYC users, and fewer decisionmakers or decisionmaking adjacent people using the site.And the deeply technical types who used HN largely shifted to lobste.rs.Karrot_Kream (another longtime HN user) identified this shift as well [0][0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Karrot_Kream
fragmede: I agree. Where did they go? Blind? Private Slack/discords?
alephnerd: The younger generation of founders meets in-person and uses iMessage and Instagram. The older generation meets in-person and uses iMessage, Signal, or WhatsApp.The reality is, most people are in-person now and conversations that were happening on HN because of the pandemic are now being done offline.
foolserrandboy: https://www.econtalk.org/seiko-swatch-and-the-swiss-watch-in...
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.
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...
stronglikedan: > Why bother?ego, of course
measurablefunc: Vanity. Ego is something else.
JumpCrisscross: > ego, of courseThis is so silly. Do you really not have any hobbies where you spend inordinate time or money on things you could objectively accomplish quicker and cheaper, but having less fun, in other ways? Like, I ski. It’s a silly way to get up and down a hill in the 21st century.I’m not a watch guy. But mechanical watches are beautiful. There are idiots who buy them. But that doesn’t mean everyone who does is an idiot.
julianpye: Actually in many cases it is for social KPI storytelling. I know some wealthy people and at gatherings they love to tell 5-10min long stories of exclusive processes that they followed to gain something exclusive while dropping names and numbers. The processes are easy to understand for the entire social circle (i.e. not technical or business achievements which they can't easily disclose).
kridsdale1: We can say all the same things about cars, but nobody thinks it’s odd that there’s a status culture about cars worth more than $75,000.
JumpCrisscross: > nobody thinks it’s odd that there’s a status culture about cars worth more than $75,000Sure. To each their own. I drive a Subaru. I don’t think it’s weird that others like a nice car. (I also think there are douchebags who drive both.)
kridsdale1: Anyone with $(80,00-250,000) (which is a lot of you) can buy a Nautilus today[1].This status-through-martyrdom ritual to get it from retail at MSRP is utterly bizarre.[1] https://www.chrono24.com/patekphilippe/nautilus--mod106.htm
thot_experiment: Holy shit that's an ugly watch too, looks like something outta chinatown lmao.
davidw: Economists have a term for these kinds of things where the demand rises as prices rise: Veblen goodshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
candiddevmike: More and more I realize I am completely obvlious to all of the class signaling happening here. I couldn't imagine spending that much on anything, let alone a watch. And I certainly wouldn't think someone wearing that did, either.I feel bad for the folks who pick up on stuff like this, that must be a heavy weight to bear constantly comparing yourself to other people.
boelboel: Collecting watches isn't a hobby, it's pure consumerism. Sure many hobbies have (recently?) gotten way more people spending top dollars for no reason but with watch collecting there's nothing else. You're not tweaking the dials, you don't know how to make the watch, you just watch it and wear it while a technologically superior version is 500 times cheaper. There's also no natural shortage of them, they can make a trillion of these watches.At least with cars or audio equipment there's some marginal benefits once you get to crazy numbers, not the case with watches.