[daralthus]

While I mostly agree with the grim conclusion, I think there's an important aspect ignored that in every domain the very first and very best brands could leverage as good design and purpose: art and fun.

Remember winamp skins?

"The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged." - Shklovsky on defamiliarization

What pg is really writing about is enshittification, consumerism.