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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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But the products aren't better. The Mr Beast burger isn't a better burger than a (ew) mcdonalds burger.

McD has its own celebrity endorsements, including collaborations with Saweetie and BTS in recent years. For a fairer comparison, whatever white label burger chain MrB is built on top of, I would guess that the quality of the MrB version is higher than the no-name version. Now, I'm willing to concede that the MrB version tacks on a price premium that may or may not make it less of a deal vs. the no-name, but it'd be like how some Porsche model is built on top of a Volkswagen, but even if it costs a lot more as a result, the product should be higher quality because Porsche has a brand to protect so can't just deliver a Volkswagen with a Porsche hood ornament.

I also wonder if we're mostly agreeing with each other very loudly. I realize a celebrity endorsement doesn't magically improve the underlying design and manufacturing of goods and services. I'm mainly pointing out that a general statement that "people are irrational to become more favorable toward one product or service over others by virtue of a non-professionally-aligned celebrity endorsement" is overly simplistic, incomplete, and sometimes flat-out wrong.

Kind of reminds me of The Rationality of Literal Tide Pod Consumption

Fun take. Maybe Tide should advertise that it's adding trace amounts of estrogen to its pods. That'd shut down any status boosting element among boys.

Also, this doesn't affect your iphone point, but the $99/$199 iphone is tied to a phone plan ("starting at $35"/mo?), making it not that cheap.

True, but I assume anyone buying the $700+ iPhones are also on the hook for phone plans starting at $35/mo. I didn't look into the offer closely but the link's commentators referenced something about the phone becoming unlocked after 1-2 months, so anyone really pinching pennies would only have to overpay by maybe $20 or so if they can otherwise find a provider that only charges $25/mo.

but it'd be like how some Porsche model is built on top of a Volkswagen, but even if it costs a lot more as a result, the product should be higher quality because Porsche has a brand to protect so can't just deliver a Volkswagen with a Porsche hood ornament.

I need to push back on this, because, while I'm no expert, I assume Porsches haven't been built on the same steel/frames/bodies as Volkswagens for decades, unless you count the Cayenne and Panamera models. If anything, the 911 was probably the point at which Porsche's engineering started to diverge from the Kafer et al. To build better sports cars and race cars(!), you need to start with more bespoke underpinnings, and the rear-engine VW frames were likely not enough for Porsche come the 1960's or 70's (especially with their front-engine models like the 924).

If anything, you could have used Maybach as your automotive example--those were practically just gussied-up Benzes, and they failed to take off for likely the very reason you point at. (In fact, the Maybach nameplate was recently revived, but now more akin to a trim or special edition of the S-Class.)

I was thinking of the Cayenne. You could dismiss it 10 years ago but not now. It's their most popular model in NA in the most recent quarter!

But I admit I don't know too much about this. I just used it because I was talking about Rolexes and Porsches :D