Do you trust BRANDS? Why/Why not?

[Jaximus-Lion]

Any brand! If it's Electronics, clothing, cars, shoes, perfumes, bakery, wine, pharmacy, TV channel and so on.

Do you test the product by your self? Or do you listen to curtain people who tells you this is a good/bad product?

When you don't know much about the tech it self (like cars or electronics for example) what do you do? Where to go? Who to ask? Instinct?

[OlderAndWiser]

If we are talking about a product like food, I am not always concerned about a brand name. I will try brands that I do not know because, if they are bad, I haven't lost much money, and my experience is that many unknown brands produce quality food products.

If we are talking about a major purchase like an automobile, I rely on my experience with brands. E. g., I have owned Ford products, VW, Toyota, and had good experiences with all of them. But I would also look for online reviews, such as Consumer Reports, before making such a major purchase.

[OlderAndWiser]

Thanks for MHO!

[jshm2]

It depends if you believe in marketing or not. As a business owner and employer, I know a lot more than the average Joe about the particulars in the field.

Brands are a good way to identify a product the world over. A Costa coffee in the UK will be the same Costa you get in Singapore airport. That's marketing and branding at work, and it doesn't matter what the product is, in many respects. The customer will "reject" the product only when the marketing and branding breaks down.

[Agape93]

Sure because I tested them. Husqvarna, mossberg, OKC, morakniv etc

[IslaTheWitch]

only those I tested and approved by myself :D

[MisterWack]

I don’t trust all brands, all have skeletons in the closet.

Instagram’s internal research showed that young girls were anxious, stressed, had negative thoughts about their body / self image, felt isolated, had thoughts of suicide. What did they do? They secretly gave that data they collected to give to advertisers that allowed them to put ads pushing therapy & self health (making a profit off of those with an issue caused by the site itself rather than removing users under 18).

General Motors didn’t originally want seatbelts in their vehicles or airbags afraid that consumers would find their vehicles unsafe and refuse to buy… Regulations & standards force their hand and if they got their way, cars would be effectively more deadlier than they are today.

Amazon Workers needing to pee in bottles at their work station because bathroom breaks deduct their pay / can even lead to layoffs…. I believe Minnesota is one of the few states that gave rights to these workers of paid time off & for 15 Day paid time off if my memory serves me well.

I could go on and on and on. Everyone has a sin to pay for, if Capitalism had no guardrails they would be selling our souls for a quick buck because we’ve seen it…. Cottongins with fire hazards that took hundreds of workers’ lives led to fire safety procedure of buildings & fire codes. Just a reminder.

[Jaximus-Lion]

That's part of it , big corps abusing their power. As long there is no solid rules nor solid union so big brands will keep doing their thing

[MisterWack]

@Jaximus-Lion Exactly

[exitseven]

Most stuff is made in the same Chinese slave shop and they just put a different label on it.

[Jaximus-Lion]

Mostly ! Yes. Like clothes and phones, shoes, bags, accessories and such that is 100% slavery.
Remember refrigerators that last 40 years without failing apart like today's advanced tech. Real leather shoes and belts that were passed on from generation to another. I have a coat that says (Made in west Germany) and the coat is in amazing shape, real fur and heavy (almost 3 kg)

[exitseven]

I had a repairman come out to fix my refrigerator. It was ten years old. Th guy told me that they only last for 8 years. Thr problem is all the energy saving devices built in to it. Th circuit boards die and have to be replaced. So you have to have a 250 dollar repair job to save twenty bucks worth of electricity.

[DryGermanGuy]

https://static.dw.com/image/17015666_1006.webp
😬👍

[Pterodon]

Yeah because they’re usually consistent in quality

[NathanDavis]

I usually stick to the usual proven ones...