[FinnLobsien]

Yeah it's quite interesting how most of the decline of great brands came as a result of ownership changes, not complacency on part of the owner/founder.

I've actually found AI a great resource for finding brands that offer great value for money by buying from obscure factories/brands with the same quality attributes as major brands, but without all the marketing spend and brand margin to subsidize.

[thesuitonym]

This is actually a terrible use for AI, since it's going to regurgitate the marketing astroturfing on Reddit without showing you the source so you can see it's all bots.

[FinnLobsien]

It's not if you use it correctly. If you say "Find me good brands for X", then yes you'll get bad stuff.

I said something like:

"Identify [category]-making cluster regions in Europe (where I am), research the manufacturers/companies you find and see if they have online stores."

Once I had that list and found stuff I liked, I sent what I liked back to the AI and asked it to find me items of comparable build quality from better-known brands."

I did this latest step so that I could have a benchmark and to see if I was actually getting a better deal or if I could just buy from the big brand.

The trick was to specify the exact process I'd like to have run, but wouldn't take the time to do.

I ended up buying stuff directly from an obscure manufacturer's Shopify store for 1/3 the price I would've paid at a big brand. I think this could work in any product category where quality markers are somewhat objective and standardized.