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Is this for real?

Is this for real?


Postby Tringa » Tue May 17, 2022 8:11 am

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Re: Is this for real?

Postby prog99 » Tue May 17, 2022 8:55 am

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Re: Is this for real?

Postby TheRealLurlock » Tue May 17, 2022 10:16 am

Every hobby, pastime, and form of leisure has companies like this, who target wealthy careerists who won't make the time to research what is worth the money and what isn't, who assume that price (and often image) follows quality in an exactly linear relationship, and who have enough disposable income that their wallet feels no difference between £30 and £160 for a chair. One the one hand, these people are allowing themselves to be taken for a ride; on the other hand, the ride makes so little difference to them that it really doesn't matter.

Look at the way they market their £200 cafe table as a platform for a 'mobile office.' One gets the impression they are targeting algorithmic options traders and big tech developers who have more or less free reign to work remotely as they please and who need only an internet connection to do so. There's a worthy place for brands like these, partly because their existence discourages other, more robust brands from raising their prices to absurdity in order to take advantage of this market.

I think the more sinister development is Youtubers who become increasingly gear-oriented and encourage newcomers to become obsessive over products and distracted from the reasons they wanted to go into the great outdoors in the first place. If you're new to hillwalking and looking to buy some kit for the first time, sooner or later you're going to stumble across a Youtube channel with possibly hundreds of in-depth reviews of individual jackets, water bottles, tent pegs and towels. This gives you the impression that all the tiny differences between brands matter and encourage you to spend more money than you probably should. Even reviewers who stress 'you don't need to spend as much as I did to great a perfectly good tent/sleeping bag/stove' still spend hours talking about every little detail of their expensive high-end gear, which amounts to a vast quantity of free advertising whether they're being paid to talk about the product or not. These in-depth advertisements are then often followed by a smash cut to a picturesque peak, thereby completly omitting the whole purpose of buying the gear in the first place, which is to enable you to undertake the potentially long and arduous journey to reach such a peak. Isn't it the idea of the journey itself which got you interested in the whole endeavour to begin with?

I see videos in which these Youtubers come together to camp on a summit, and then often say without any sense of irony that they spent the evening talking to each other about their equipment. At some point you become more interested in using your gear than you do in the activity which you're using the gear for.
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Re: Is this for real?

Postby malrobb » Wed May 18, 2022 9:30 am

Well observed TheRearLurlock. Spot on.
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Re: Is this for real?

Postby sking40 » Sun May 22, 2022 11:39 pm

I also would have poured scorn on the idea of taking a chair hiking many years ago. But stuff has generally got smaller and lighter so it doesn't seem so absurd (if you're not trying to be ultralight). The Chair Zero weighs about 500g - to me these days, that is justified by having something dry and pretty comfortable to sit back in when camping.
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