[Snackchez]

You might have slightly misconstrued the parent comment.

To rework your idea: there's a spectrum for the quality of kisses. Some people figured out a way to convince you that their kisses are better than they actually are. Others are likely better, but they don't know how to market themselves, and thus don't get kissed as much.

[braythwayt]

The trouble is that a product delivers a complex set of values upon its user, and all-too-often, when someone sneers that it doesn’t have any value, that it’s “just marketing” conning its users, they are willfully ignoring the values that it confers.

I have spent literally my entire adult life listening to people say that Apple products were inferior to PCs, going right back to the days when they’d explain that bit-mapped graphics were useless decoration, and that keyboard shortcuts were superior to mouse interactions, and so forth.

It’s clearly true that for some users, in some use cases, a certain product does deliver less value than for others. But ignoring the fact that other people see the product’s values in other ways is a monumentally arrogant and unempathetic way to view humanity.

Most people don’t buy caffiene by the milligram or whatever. The label on the bottle appeals to a desire to fit in with other people buying the same label, or to aspire to belonging to that tribe, and so forth.

It amuses me that this even needs to be explained on Hacker News: Most people who participate in the threads do so for complex social reasons that are not particularly different than the reasons that some people buy Starbucks, some people buy from an indie shop, and some people hit the Timmie’s drive-through.

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Going back to kisses, consider a blind kiss test. I might say that of three kisses, B was better than A which was better than C.

But if you tell me that the kiss from C involved Lauren Bacall... I would rank it higher than the other two immediately! There is no fraud or nonsense going on, I value the complex bundle of values around a kiss from Lauren Bacall higher than two “no-name” kisses even if they are functionally more pleasant in the moment.

[tokipin]

> Most people who participate in the threads do so for complex social reasons that are not particularly different than the reasons that some people buy Starbucks, some people buy from an indie shop, and some people hit the Timmie’s drive-through.

To make a stronger statement, there is "actual" value, it's just that people are bad at describing it. Many people will go to Starbucks every day because "they like it" and that's about as good an explanation as you can get out of them. But they didn't just wake up one day and decide they were going to like Starbucks.

For me personally, I like the consistency of Starbucks. If you order the same drink at two different stores you'll get the same drink. This isn't something that a large corporation like that does on accident. It requires a lot of effort to get that consistency. And it's just one of the many reasons someone will like Starbucks without recognizing it's one of the reasons.

People similarly like Apple products for reasons that sound vague ("it's easier to use") but which are not an accident. Apple is highly vertically integrated to ensure many of those reasons. It's no coincidence that Tesla is also vertically integrated.