On 14 Feb 2008, at 11:28, Odeluga, Ken wrote:
Martin's got a refined point I think, although it's arguable that they
don't actually make anything. They make money for a start! :)
No doubt, but money is only an abstract concept in which we choose to
place our trust in anyway - the concept is as bizarre as drinking
another animals milk :) Although the analogy of bleeding udders does
seem to fit this "world" perfectly.
But more
seriously it's *their* plants which underpay people in east Asia to
churn out these goods at a penny a shot, to be sold on in the west an
1000% margin.
Very true but someone/something, somewhere pays the price.
So in termns of traditional concept of manufacturing, they do 'make
something' I think.
But they don't (I'd argue) - they sell the contract for someone else
to make it and absolve themselves from all responsibility until it
comes to taking the glory and $$$. People buy the rights to make this
stuff, the only thing they do is the design. Just like Disney - under
all that corporation BS is just a drawing of a mouse.
However the point about the vast majority of their intelligence
capital
and their actual capital being employed to market their goods - and
that
implies the sophisticated mediation of very complex but specific ideas
in direct and also barely liminal ways simultaneously, Martin's spot
on
imo.
They don't have much else and this is where they excel often with
brute force - they buy or command that floor space, it's not an
accident!
Still, to the extent that the way the do this obviously is in step
with
the latest advancements in the way humans consume media (why should
this
surprise us? Adidas and their ilk are ice cold, ancient, 'consumer
killers'!:), that might cause some consternation to people who may
still
feel that the internet and it's newer visual parts are for 'the
people'
and similar notions like that ....
Shopping malls are the new cathedral's and the internet has become the
new idiots lantern - one look at Youtube comments is proof enough -
we've failed!
m
