Recently, I came across an advertisement for a new cleaning product. The label stated that it was: phosphate-free, dye-free, fragrance-free, and what really shocked me was that it was also microplastic-free – the trendy new scare.
At the same time, no one was eager to indicate in equally large letters what is in this cleaning product and in what quantity. But the same bright “without…” labels could be applied to a bottle of distilled water, which wouldn’t make it a cleaning agent. Why has it come to be believed that a product lacking something is superior to a product that contains something else? Why is the absence of dyes important for a cleaning product, while the presence of surfactants (the basis of any detergent) is not?
We should also suggest adding phrases like “asbestos-free,” “viking-free,” “not tested on national minorities,” and so on. Marketing scammers successfully sell a hole in a bagel instead of the bagel itself and charge for it.
It’s not just about the bottles. To sell a hole in a bagel, marketers deliberately expend effort and resources to strip a product of its usual properties and characteristics in order to sell more. An example? Low-cost airlines that, if you haven’t paid, will intentionally shuffle seats on the plane so you don’t fly next to fellow passengers. It’s the same as selling sandwiches—deliberately smearing them with something unpleasant to try to sell sandwiches without that for a higher price.
Spotify sells a “Premium” subscription that is ad-free. However, 95% of the ads you hear on Spotify are not commercial advertisements, but rather deliberately and annoyingly inserted promotions for the “Premium” service itself. In other words, Spotify doesn’t have that much advertising or advertisers, but there is a clear intention to degrade the user experience of the free version. “Try a sample of a pie filled with crap and imagine how it would be without the crap.”
Look around you; everywhere we are being asked to pay for the absence of something. From the notorious microplastics or GMOs to the inclusion of seat swapping on airplanes. The world is filled with products that have been deliberately designed to limit their usefulness and functionality: special locks on certain features, intentional inconveniences. Special restrictions that paradoxically make a “less premium” product more expensive to produce than a “premium” one. And everyone thinks they are smarter than the rest. From delivery services that intentionally organize warehouses so that shipments sent at a lower rate sit for a day or two, to car manufacturers who deliberately include operations to block the GPS navigator in the production line, even though it is already built into every car.
Within this general decline into “patties with crap,” we have discounts not “from 50%,” but “up to 50%.” We find promises on websites not about when the product will be delivered, but when it will be shipped. We can even see that the product will be delivered “no earlier than…”. We are already tired of flight tickets “from €10” and other asterisks and footnotes, which make it clear that the main advertising claim is not truthful.
In the past, when selling food, we were told about the vitamins, minerals, and other beneficial substances it contained. Now, food is marketed as “sugar-free,” “gluten-free,” “meat-free,” “low-calorie,” and “fat-free.” Under the label “organic,” we understand “free from any chemicals,” but in reality, it often means food of questionable quality, precisely because “chemicals” are not all the same. However, it’s easier for the average person to have their minds washed than to fill them with something meaningful. And for sellers, it’s simpler to write about the absence of something (which can be chosen arbitrarily) than to write about the presence of something (and to ensure that it is actually in the product).
If the script for the movie “Idiocracy” were being written today, all the products in that idiotic future wouldn’t “contain electrolytes,” but rather would be “free of heavy metal salts,” for example.
Everything is heading towards the point where we’ll have to pay just to be left alone.