On Sat, 26 Nov 2016 09:06:12 +0000, Handsome Jack wrote:

Johnny B Good posted
It seems to me that all the TV manufacturers are determined to
overwhelm their customer base with a needlessly vast repertoire of model
variants designed with the sole purpose of confusing the **** out of
their customers so as to disguise the one decent VFM (value for money)
example [1] that may or may not be hidden in each model class in order
to force their customers into buying something they'll become
dissatisfied with sooner, rather than later so as to create a 'need to
upgrade' just a short year or two later in order to bolster demand for
'newer and better' product.


This is also true of TV recorders and no doubt many related products.

The trouble is that you do not actually know what software features the
machine does and doesn't have until you get it home and play with it for
a few days. Nor do you know how reliable it is in terms of
crash-resilience. IME the recorders released in the past couple of years
are in both respects far worse than the earlier generation. In
particular the broadcast programme guides are extremely poorly designed.

It's all down to the ease with which manufacturers can now produce a
whole plethora of model variations using modern computerised
manufacturing techniques, compounded in this case by the product itself
being largely 'computerised' requiring nothing more than variations of
the firmware coding with none to almost no hardware changes being
required. The ease with which such variants can be created is taken full
advantage of in order to befuddle the poor defenceless consumer and
maximise market potential.

I guess there's always been a "Consumer War" ever since the advent of
mass production of 'Consumer Goods' at the end of the 19th century where
said manufacturers have been waging battles, initially against their
competitors but now, in this post modern world of globalisation, against
the very consumers themselves.

The battles have been organised by the marketing divisions who employ a
mercenary army of advertising agencies from Maddison avenue where the
favoured battlefield has been TV advertising ever since the middle of the
last century in the UK (and, from where it was imported from, the USA a
couple of decades earlier as a natural evolution of sound radio
advertising).

The advertising agencies were very quick to recruit psychology expertise
in their battle of wits with their clients' target demographic. When it
comes to "A Battle of Wits", the ad agencies have an unfair advantage
over their 'adversaries', the 'consuming classes'. It's as if the
consumers are re-enacting the "Battle of The Somme" by charging across no-
mans'-land into a psychological hail of machine gun fire from the more
than amply armed Marketing divisions of the enemy (aka, the globalised
manufacturing conglomerates responsible for most of the crappy consumer
goods they're being fobbed off with).

Each time you settle down in front of your TV to watch a commercial
channel it's an analogue of fighting a skirmish in this never ending war
of globalised consumer goods manufacturing versus the great unwashed
consuming masses.

For the younger generation, this is a Battle of Wits they are ill
equipped to win (the education system failed them by not providing
"Cynicism 101" as part of its core curriculum from year one onwards).

The older generation, for the most part having attended the University
of Life, will have picked up valuable hard won lessons in how to deal
with the "Lying *******s" of the advertising industry so aren't nearly
so vulnerable to the flood of marketing bull**** promises being poured
down upon them from on high every 5 to 20 minutes whilst watching what is
effectively "Bait" entertainment.

Even so, such 'battle hardened veterans' of the consuming classes will
eventually succumb to the relentless pressure and make ill founded buying
decisions in spite of themselves (these days, it's enough for the
advertising agencies simply to raise awareness of a brand name to tip the
balance in their clients' favour). None of us are entirely immune to the
effects of advertising so we're all at risk of being conned into making a
less than optimal purchasing decision. It's just an inescapable fact of
life in our modern consumer based western society.

Despite the inescapable consequences of living a consumerised western
lifestyle, it's still worth keeping in mind why we're so often left with
that deep rooted feeling of dissatisfaction with almost every one of our
latest "Must Have" purchases. In short, that feeling is 'By Design' since
the marketing/advertising industries' are serving their client's needs,
not yours.

--
Johnny B Good