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Originally Posted by frahse
I see your point, Prestidigitweeze, and I also see Forsooths.
I think the trap you have fallen into is to only have 2 categories. . . .
Some brands I admire. Others I stay away from. Surely you see things are not strictly dichotomies.
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The trap into which you yourself seem to have fallen is this: Conflating a description of a pathology for the mindset of the person who describes it. You might as well call an argument boolean because the syntax uses parallel phrases.
Seeing brands as polarizing is the condition being described, not the position being advocated.
The first mistake is to see brands as boolean dichotomies. The second is to form factions around the idea. My description is of boolean factions that arise from thinking of brands as antipodal categories. It is certainly not a description of all possible categories because the fault lies with the idea of Us/Them opposition.
Nowhere have I suggested that boolean thinking about brands is a good idea. I've only pointed out some of the symptoms and effects.
In my original essay on this subject on head-fi, I suggested that one way to be
relatively free of marketing concerns is to choose to buy new products only when necessary. Thus, the person who buys a non-Apple tablet years before their iPad dies or becomes impractical is more of a marketing victim than someone who simply waits and makes a more practical choice next time (unless of course the next iPad is perfect for their specific needs).
The idea is to recognize the usefulness of what you own already, and to choose your next device empirically regardless of branding.
Obviously, the person who has money to burn and wants something faster or more flexible might have their own reasons for upgrading.
Get it? The point is not to create inflexible categories. The point is to find ways to arrive at
other options -- to avoid being stuck with choices which are predetermined by arbitrary conflicts.
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It can't just be the powerful and the weak or there wouldn't be these splits.
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Brand battles tend to occur among the relatively disempowered, not between the wealthy and the poor. Anti-loyalists who identify an
opposed brand with characteristics associated with the wealthy (or, more recently, with the socially elite) are another matter.
Historically, the situation reminds me of certain 19th century riots in New York, in which poor Irish American immigrants chased down poor African Americans, vilifying the latter for stealing jobs. Of course, neither group had stolen jobs from the other. It was all a form of scapegoating over large-scale events and decisions made at much higher levels.