[ellius]

In other words, marketing is very important. I think as technical people we like to "evaluate things on merit," but the reality is that the technological complexity of our society has become such that it is virtually impossible for someone to gauge the quality of a product in a field where we're not an expert. That's part of why marketing takes on such importance.

[cryptica]

Yes it is. It's just extremely frustrating that even though people are aware of how powerful marketing is, that no one seems to acknowledge its effects on themselves and on society. Marketing doesn't create value, it redistributes existing value by creating an illusion of added value. The reality is that it takes value from a large number of small players and gives it to a few large players; and this has nothing to do with the true underlying value of the products.