Liquid Death sells water | Hacker News Reader

Liquid Death sells water

thegazette.com

20 pointsVaslo72 comments

> he had raised an additional $1.6 million for his canned-water startup

It's always blowing my mind that smart/rich people invest time/energy/money in such useless ventures. On one hand everyone knows we're fucking the planet big time with mindless production/consumption, on the other hand you can spend $21.99 on 6L of water, in alu cans ... sweet sweet ""progress"" I guess.

"It's always blowing my mind that smart/rich people invest time/energy/money in such useless ventures"

Consider that they are trying to make money, and from that premise, they are not 'useless ventures'.

All food products are commodities: even cola, energy drinks.

Coca Cola, RedBull are by far and away brands more than they are 'good products'.

Evian water sells for 30% more than unbranded water, that's the power of brand.

From a certain perspective, of course it's useless, because it's just branded water obviously, it's in a way offensive to our sensibilities ... but it's smart.

The brand is pretty good. It's a little risky but it almost makes sense.

In restaurants, they charge you more for branded water, and they make you feel like a dolt for drinking 'tap water'. They make a lot of money selling it.

This is the 'bar' equivalent: you can drink 'tap water' like a broke school kid or have a can of 'liquid death' while your bros drink up. Then you don't look like 'sissy' (or choose your own term if that offends the sensibilities). Obviously it's ridiculous, but that's what consumerism is.

I saw this in the news yesterday and immediately flagged it to my marketing friends. It's not a stupid idea.

It's not that you can't make money off it, it's that this sort of mindless unnecessary consumption has severe social and environmental consequences.

In terms of making money from empty marketing, come what may, it probably isn't a stupid idea.

In a world that's creaking under extreme pressure from climate, species and forest loss, and so on, it's an utterly reckless and stupid idea. That we have to learn to walk away from.

Quite happy to be the uncool kid (a stretch at my age, but hey) drinking tap water, ta. :)

Curious if you’d give up your tea for ecological reasons?

(Making some assumptions from your username ;)

https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acref...

On the basis of a very fast skim and the conclusion, their grounds appear to apply to 99% of agriculture. I'd have to give up eating.

"However, the tea industry has a high impact on the environment. While being monoculture, it is hub a particular type of fauna, it is ecologically friendly, that is, not harmful to the environment, absorbs greenhouse gases, and supports tea-tourism. However, it also raises certain concerns, including the huge use of pesticides and irrational use of chemical fertilizers."

No idea how it compares to coffee, coke, canned water or anything really, but the conclusion implies it may be one of the least-worst options.

If it turns out tea was worse than other beverage options, yes I would. We've already made significant changes, and expect to make more - from choice and mandated before my time here is done. :)

Giving up tea presumably would mean giving up something the poster presumably finds pleasurable. Drinking tap water instead of bottled has no such trade off. There's a big difference between asking people to live like monks and asking them to not consume things that give them little to no value.

So you're saying if I can make money doing something, then it is both ethical and smart?

I didn't say that.

We all agree it's kind of dumb, pragmatically.

Mostly what I'm trying to do is convey to some commenters here what seems to be a common lack of understanding in tech (maybe a good thing) as to how and why people buy goods and services.

When one understand this, one understands why it's a 'good' business plan.

Also - we - all of us - are woefully unaware of how poignant and powerful all of this is. It works on all of us and 100% of the consumer goods we buy - and even many 'tech goods' are brand and aspirationaly oriented.

Tech is full of ridiculous fads and memes; when I go to tech conferences we play a game of 'count the allbirds' (shoes) as kind of a joke.

But even for actual tech products: Google, FB, Snapchat, Apple (obviously), MS, to some extent Twitter - those are heavy brands, even if they weren't derived from a bunch of marketing people ... 'Do No Evil' ended up being an important lynchpin of Google branding efforts. Way way back in about the year 2000, Google was running ads on NPR and their ethos and manner was presented ultimately as quite different than other tech companies. It was part of their messaging, however authentic.

So - no, I would not want to do this business, I would not want to support it, and I hope I never buy this ridiculous water. But I know my snowboarding brother and his friends will ...

If you start with the assumption that 100% of purchases are aspirational, it is no surprise that you reach this conclusion. But I will seriously question that assumption, simply because there are many other reasons to purchase a product. The vast majority of purchases I make are decided by distribution, not marketing. You seem to be measuring things in such a way as to never see the difference.

While branded water does sell for more, if you look closely you discover that bottled water buyers are not nearly as brand loyal as other drink buyers are (most cola drinkers have tried both Coke and Pepsi and can tell the difference, most water buyers have likewise tried off brands and been unable to tell the difference). Store brand water sells very well in general.

Is it bad that I actually like this core idea because of plastics pollution?

Aluminum cans have a plastic liner.

Is that better or worse than disposable bottles?

The solution to the bottled water epidemic is (to return to) reusing water bottles, not to manufacture yet more millions out of a different material.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order

I bought four cheap water bottles from supermarket, one for work, one for home office, one for bedroom and a spare.

Drinking bottled water in the UK is insane, we have some of the best water in the world and people spend a pound on something they could get out the tap basically free.

How about ensuring tap water is actually drinkable and stop water bottles altogether?

It still boggles my mind that people continue buying water bottles where tap water is totally ok (and in some case, better than bottled water).

Did you know that aluminum cans have a plastic liner?

Plastic bottles are made from a plastic that can be recycled into carpets and other synthetic materials fairly well. Plastic pollution comes largely from lower grades of plastic (think plastic bags, etc) that break apart into smaller pieces that filter feeders eat

Is the liner similar to bottles or is it lower grade plastic?

If it's lower grade, is there something better than can be used?

I did not

Aw man :(

Apparently, alumimum can cause neurodegenerative diseases [1]. Therefore perhaps it's a good thing that these cans have a plastic liner (?)

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28429887

Definitely! I was just providing information that using aluminum cans isn't a viable way to reduce exposure to plastic

I wouldn't worry about the plastic liner, TBH. Afaik this plastic lining is burned off/removed when recycling the aluminum. Unlike plastic, and like steel, aluminum is very economical to recycle, so it mostly is and has been for decades.

Do you think burning plastic is an environmentally sound practice?

That depends on how complete the combustion is and how well the produced gasses are filtered.

Aluminium its not economical to recycle at all. It takes a lot of energy to recycle it, which is done only because processing bauxites is even more expensive.

Buy a metal/glass bottle and fill it yourself. It's the most convenient / least polluting way to go. Depending on where you live some bottles might be consigned and reused (I know they do it that way in berlin)

It's "reduce, reuse, recycle" for a reason, "reduce" has a much bigger impact then "recycle".

From an investment point of view, smart/rich people that invest in start ups know a large percentage of them fail [1]. The idea is to invest smaller amounts in a bunch of crazy ideas in hopes that one of them--for reasons you may not fully understand--succeeds and covers the losses of the others.

Anecdotally: you could argue that a car that drives itself is outlandish, or rentable electric scooters is stupid, or X other idea is ridiculous, but those smart/rich investors are still making money at the end of the day.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/01/16/90-of-star...

Sure, if you judge things depending on how much money you can get in the least amount of time it makes sense. The question is: when do we stop being ok with subsidising instant profit by selling our future well being ?

Would you trade one of your lung for a 5$ bill ? No, well that's what we're doing right now.

Pretentious water is not a hill I am willing to die on. I was just pointing out that start ups are not backed because of their utility.

Reminds me of http://www.mtv.com/news/1887953/monster-tour-water/, which X-games athletes use as well.

Props to the author for trying to generate clicks through false controversy, but the attempt falls flat. They keep mentioning how this product is a form of toxic masculinity or part of a boys' club, even comparing it to other products clearly marketed to men. But this product is only marketed to straight-edge punk or metal people, which is not in any way exclusively male. I'm kind of embarrassed for the author, as what they're implying (only men can be straight-edge or punk) is so obviously sexist. I actually know more women than men that are into skulls and death imagery, and more women who don't drink or smoke.

100% agreed. The author doesn't even provide direct examples of this product's ads or marketing materials.

Why is this weird? You can buy water in glass bottles, plastic bottles and paper containers around the world. Why not in a can with a cool logo/slogan?

Because what sort of weird thing do you have to have going on in your brain that you want your water to be edgy / cringey?

Plus you can't re-seal cans.

On the other hand if they're going to drink a can of something, it might as well be plain water. Much healthier and more environmentally friendly than pretty much anything else you could put in it.

I mean beer is slowly killing us so is technically pretty good for the environment.

One example of a "weird thing" is to be a recovering alcoholic who wants to occasionally have a more ornate or interesting non-alcoholic beverage in their hand in social settings.

If you gave me a choice between a plastic Fiji bottle and a metal can with a badass skull on it, I'm choosing the badass skull. That "weird thing in your brain" is a lifestyle choice, and we make them all the time. How weird is it that someone might choose a translucent purple pen over a plain white pen? It makes no difference really, but some people prefer one over the other.

To figure back in High School I did a business project for selling "Dehydrated Water". I guess I was about 20 years too early...

They are not selling water. They are selling an image and an aspiration: tap water is for boring, conventional, cheap people. 'Liquid Death' is for progressive bros to drink at the bar while their buddies drink up. 'Skate or die + Organic'. (Obviously this is ridiculous, rationally, but this is how consumers (including us) act).

Bars would much rather sell you branded water than give you free tap water, just as restaurants do.

One of my favourite Mike Reid radio adverts - Hones John's instant Ice. Just add water, and put it in the freezer.

Too cool? I sense some judgement here. As someone who had never enjoyed alcohol and technically a tech bro, my rejection to alcohol is nothing about the image it presents, just I didn't like the drink. Is this weird？

There is sometimes judgment/pressure if you don't drink unfortunately, but it seems to be getting more rare. Most people are respectful though (same goes for a lot of my H1B buddies who don't eat meat).

Have you seen a picture of the product? The judgement has nothing to do with people being teetotal. The product is marketed at people who want to look like their drinking Some kind of ‘radical’ beer.

Lots of energy drinks come in similar cans, it isn't just the beers.

But this isn’t beer. It’s water marketed as beer. That’s the hook.

Anyway, the posters point was that they thought the tite was looking down on non-drinkers. I think they were ust looking down on this product.

Right, my point is that it is probably being marketed alongside Monster and the like more that it is being marketed alongside beer.

I don't drink and find the title provocative - don't have any plans to go write an article complaining about it though.

Considering it's an article complaining about "toxic masculinity" (phrase used in the article), that sure seems like one incredibly toxic title.

I like how the author is mad about water while canned beer which is produced consumed in much larger quantities is totally fine. Getting beer-drinkers to switch to water via marketing would be a huge win and it's an effort that should be applauded.

Ugh.

"Private browsing detected. In order to continue browsing The Gazette in private mode please login".

> Inspect element: delete

No worse than Voss, Fiji, or Mountain Valley Spring. Looks like they're going to sell it for similar prices, too. Article title is a bit inflammatory, but there's massively overpriced spring water out there already.

Once I got past the black screen that forces me to disable my ad block, I then get presented with a survey I have to take in order to be able to read the article.

No thanks.

You may find BehindTheOverlay extension useful.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/l... / https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/behind_the_ov...

You have stuff like Voss which is water in a fancy bottle. So why not this?

Because water is cheap, easily purified and abundant. Only gullible people (affluent or misguided) consume it as a luxury good.

It’s more like status signaling in my experience. There is a social reason to do it

You consume branded aspirational products essentially every day.

Almost all consumer products have integrated aspirational messaging that induces you (and I mean you, me, everyone else) to pay significantly more then we would otherwise.

Most people's clothing, for example, goes far beyond cost/utility/comfort.

The 'gullible' people are those who think they are not susceptible to this, and don't act on these impulses.

Almost thinks they are not susceptible to marketing, and almost everyone actually is.

Who's claiming marketing immunity? There's status signaling, and there's gullibility. Wearing quality shoes that also look nice is worth paying extra, but paying extra for the packaging of water indistinguishable from that of a cheap filter is plain gullibility.

Buying designer tap water might be status signaling, but it's just because the other gullible people consider it a status signal.

Almost like boxed water.

The product comes off as a little silly to me and it's probably not the best idea, but there's no need for the writer to get all SJW about it.

"no need to get all SJW about it"

I cannot express how much I detest this phrase or the similarly vile German equivalent 'Gutmensch'. Turning the good impetus or empathy into something negative is just evil. One should really rethink the use of the term.

Not to say the 'toxic masculinity' is not a terrible term as well since it can easily be misunderstood as (any) masculinity being toxic -- not just exaggerated, testosterone-overcharged masculinity.

It can easily be "misunderstood" by people arguing in bad faith, but that's true of any term; "toxic masculinity" remains a useful phrase for referring to a particular set of beliefs and behaviours.

As is "Social Justice Warrior". Both terms were created to identify certain behaviors and categorize them in a negative light. You can't praise one while condemning the other.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com