
Barons of Crap: The disruptors who didn’t change anything - webdva
https://thebaffler.com/latest/barons-of-crap-kaiser-schatzlein
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csb6
Capitalism optimizes for wealth accumulation, not for utility. If an
entrepreneur can sell a false but appealing image for millions and move on,
why would they spend their time inventing anything concrete or meaningful?
It’s a lot easier to sell a viral video of a revolutionary product than it is
to invent and sell an real revolutionary product. So why innovate then, if you
can just green-screen it and get the same result with less effort?

This article is a fascinating study of the increasingly post-material world we
live in where images without substance - signs, signals, and abstract statuses
- determine the true price of things. Think of the Supreme brick. It’s all
about signaling that something has value, like Dollar Shave Club, and in our
bizarre economy, that empty signal _becomes reality_ \- the image alone
eventually is what _gives the useless thing value_. The fact that in reality
they just resell cheap razors made by someone else using a technology - the
mail - that Sears used 100 years ago doesn’t matter; they simulate innovation,
and so they are innovation. God this shit sucks.

