Brand Loyalty is Dumb and Makes you Poor
For a long time, I only bought ASUS. My first phone was the Zenfone 2, and my computers were all built with ASUS parts. I had this unshakeable belief in the brand because my personal experience was mostly positive, and I placed everything ASUS as the pinnacle of tech. Nobody could convince me otherwise, and any criticism I dismissed as “haters be hating”.
Then the ROG phone was introduced. It retailed for 499$ at the time, and I was so excited to buy it, but when I saved enough for it, the ROG phone 2 was released at a significant mark-up. So I skipped it. I would have bought the Zenfone, but the flagship was selling for almost 800$. So I skipped it as well. I settled for a cheap Honor Phone, and I was midly surprised that it wasn't terrible. This phone became my daily driver for the next few months, and I couldn't tell that it was a 400$ midrange phone.
I wasn't gaming too much, all I cared about was scrolling social media and playing music. I avoided mobile gaming because of how most of them are designed to get users addicted. So my overall phone use was not too extensive. The camera was not half bad, I got decent pictures for the price point.
This led me to consider HONOR as the brand to trust. My current phone is the HONOR 90, a decent midrange phone that performs to expectations. It has been years since I bought this, and I have yet to consider buying a new phone. But out of curiosity, I shopped around for the newest models HONOR has to offer, and I can't help but be disappointed.
The newer models had negligible improvements, and playing around with the demo-units in the store left me considerably underwhelmed. It didn't help that the entry price for what the brands consider mid-range has risen as well.
I was a little heartbroken, HONOR let me down.
But I couldn't help but wonder why I felt this way for a faceless entity; whose entire business model revolves around training users to replace their expensive metal rectangles on a yearly basis for up to a months' salary in payment?
And all phone manufacturers are the same.
Samsung released the Flip5, which my wife bought the year after, and another year later with the Flip6, the price has not only increased 20%, but there was hardly any difference in specifications. Screensize was slightly bigger, but processor, ram, and memory were practically the same. The freakin' screens were literally the same, and yet Samsung has the audacity to charge users an extra 20% for little to no changes.
Apple does the same shit.
Yet, people would go out of their way to buy up the next phone just because their favorite brand released it.
But these brands don't care. They just want your money.
I was an adidas fan for a long time, and my entire wardrobe would only be adidas. But a 40€ pants would start breaking down faster than the 10€ I bought at Lager157. In the past 2 years, I slowly built it my wardrobe of decent quality clothes for twice as cheap as the ones made by the multi-billion company. I actively avoid adidas now, just because everything I ever bought from there became trash in under a year. The shoes I bought for 15€ are still in my daily use at work, whereas my Stan Smiths are no longer wearable despite me wearing them 2–3 times a week.
Image by Julio César Velásquez Mejía from Pixabay
A brand these days no longer mean quality, they just mean expensive.
The more I began shopping diligently, the more I noticed that I do not have to spend a lot to get good quality. Insisting on buying only a certain brand of anything is what leads to a monopoly. Monopolies mean no market competition, which leads to higher prices for poor quality products, and if you have no choice in what you buy means you have to take those high prices up the ass.
Thus, being conditioned to buy more expensive shit for less value means you'll have a net loss in the exchange. The free market is supposed to be two entities exchanging goods for equal value. In other words, you get what you pay for.
But now, you pay for the perceived value. Samsung and Apple have built a brand that meant people has to pay up the ass prices just because the logo is on the thing. And insisting that you only buy from a specific brand will not incentivize them to improve their product, but worse still is you taking the extortionary prices up the ass.
I keep using that phrase, up the ass, because that's what Brand Loyalty is. It's where you don't become critical, you don't discern, you just take whatever is sold to you — no questions asked, because the brand said so.
And this is a big reason why you have no money.
I have been very fickle with my finances for a while now, ever since falling into a big financial pit a few years ago. I was working full-time, and yet my bank account was drained, I was neck deep in debt, and I was struggling to make my paycheck last the next one.
Now I'm better off, I have more in my savings and investment that I could afford not to work full-time.
But this didn't happen overnight, the process began with waking up from the trance the brands have placed on me as a consumer and realizing that I don't have to take everything up the ass - no questions asked.
We have to ask questions and refuse to buy what they are selling if it doesn't mean we get the value that was promised.
So here's a quick checklist of things you can do to not be a sucker for brands and maybe not be poor in the process:
1. Don't buy without comparing alternatives, therefore always look for alternatives.
2. Don't buy without comparing currents. New doesn't always mean better.
3. Don't buy without considering your needs. The ad-men only want you to buy regardless of your situation.
4. Don't buy if the transaction can't be completed. So no pre-orders. Con men make promises, and the ad-men are the modern day confidence man.
5. Don't buy if you can't return your purchase. Any transaction that does not guarantee satisfaction on your part is not to be trusted.
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