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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads. If I lost that option, I would not watch YouTube. Same with all of the other streaming services. Netflix pushed it last year with preview rolls. It was barely acceptable/tolerable. But I will eagerly jettison any service that makes me pay for ads.

Heck, I even look askance at people who willingly pay money to unironically wear logos. Why do you do that? You, yes, you reading this. Why do you buy Nike clothing or Adidas track suits or Louis Vuitton anything?? Explain yourself.

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Find me an unbranded pair of basketball shorts that will last 10 years, have consistent sizing, and cost less than $20 at an outlet and I’ll gladly buy them.

I could gamble on “YAWHOHOMELIFE Men's Running Workout Shorts Training Gym Athletic Joggers Sweat Short Pants Quick Dry Breathable with Zip Pockets”, or pay like $5 more for a little white embroidered check mark and the aforementioned benefits without needing to trial a bunch of junk from companies that won’t exist in a year.

What I've found is that "serious" equipment tends to have subdued branding, or at least has some options like that.

I have a pair of basketball shorts that are still going strong after something like 12 years. They're Nike, but the logo is black on black, so barely visible if you don't look for it. Ditto for the basketball shoes. The logo is barely visible since it's the same color as the shoe. The shoes are somewhat recognizable, though, because of the air thing at the heel.

Decathlon (French sports brand) also has gym shorts that are subdued. Small black logo on dark green cloth. They're also cheaper than the Nike shorts, but do seem flimsier. Their "running" t-shirts are great and have options with barely visible branding.

Now, motorcycling gear is a whole different story... For some reason, it's very hard to find something that doesn't look like a freaking billboard.

Similarly high end consumer brands like Gucci don't blast their labels on their high end products. The cheap stuff is cheap because you become a walking billboard. The expensive stuff is expensive because you just paid for quality. That's even within one company so your point is even more extreme across an industry.

Dior and Louis Vuitton love putting their logos all over their products, especially accessories. I think it cheapens the brand, but i'm not their marketing person.

Even with those if you sort their products by price the higher cost ones have a subtler logo because you're right, it does cheapen the product. The higher cost/higher end from these brands are basically a separate company with a shared name.

The lower cost ones have the logo because that's how the people you're around will know. The higher cost ones don't have the logo because the people around you will recognize quality.

re: motorcycle gear: Rev'it has some pretty neutral branded options, but not inexpensive... I've had good luck with the quality and fit.

Cycling gear goes the opposite direction. Decathlon is great, but they have a weird fetish for a really intense shade of blue.

Seriously. I was trying to find socks without a logo. Just simple black ankle socks, made of mostly cotton. IT'S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE! As you said, the only options are cheaply manufactured stuff online.

MUJI socks are comfortable and well made. And no logo, ever.

This is a false dichotomy. Your choice is to pay extra for a logo, or pay less for equivalent quality but no logo. You choose logo. Why?

Even if this were the case (it's not), there's still a time cost - I have to find the brand without the logo that's the same quality. I buy athletic shorts maybe once every 2-3 years almost always on Black Friday. I know Nike shorts will be high quality, and I know they'll fit. Wading through the many non-logo brands, trying them on, returning the ones that are bad, etc. might take me several hours to save tens of dollars.

The point here is that you're misunderstanding why the logo matters. I don't care if there's a logo on my shorts or not - I care what the logo represents, which is a brand that consistently produces high-quality goods. I'm willing to pay more for that, especially when it saves me time shopping.

If you take the time to understand what makes a quality shoe, it will save you time and money and embarrassment (like, you wouldn't be caught dead wearing Common Projects and would be embarrassed for someone wearing them). No need to rely on logos, which is weakly correlated to quality.

Check this channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RoseAnvil

> you wouldn't be caught dead wearing Common Projects and would be embarrassed for someone wearing them

Y'know, you seem more focused on logos and their importance than anybody else here. I would never been embarrassed for someone wearing a certain kind of shoe. I'm not judging people based on logos, since what brand of shoe someone else is wearing has absolutely no impact on my life.

For athletic shoes, I wear Mizunos. Went to a good running store once, spent an hour with the old grizzled guy there until I found a shoe I liked, and I've stuck with the brand ever since. They've got a big logo on the side, but again, I don't care about that; I care about the fact that I know the shoe will be high quality and fit well.

> No need to rely on logos, which is weakly correlated to quality.

No, that's a made up fact that is wrong. Brands tend to be pretty consistent in their quality over time, especially those that have been around a while.

> Check this channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RoseAnvil

I'm not going to check that channel because, again, the point here is that I don't want to spend a bunch of time learning about how shoes are made. I just want to buy a good quality shoe (or short, or whatever) and brand is a fine proxy for that. The amount of money I spend buying a reputable brand is well worth it given the time I save by not watching videos like whatever the one you linked is.

Well sure, they have identified that people wearing logos is strange and they don’t like it. Why wouldn’t they be more focused on logos than someone who hasn’t noticed this? It is kind of hard to notice given how common it is, and I think one has to be at least slightly detached from the zeitgeist to really notice the strangeness.

> No, that's a made up fact that is wrong. Brands tend to be pretty consistent in their quality over time, especially those that have been around a while

You said you use logos as a proxy for quality because you don't have time to understand how to evaluate quality, nor learn what brands have quality but no logos. There is an inconsistency there. How would you know quality if "does it have a logo?" is how you evaluate it?

> The amount of money I spend buying a reputable brand is well worth it given the time I save

Do you save time and money though, for real? Clothing is literally the thing that touches your body the overwhelming majority of your time and clothed is the only way the vast majority of people will ever see you. Isn't it worth taking an afternoon or a weekend and learning the fundamentals of how to look good? I mean if you want to spend a lot of money on a reputable brand and be sure of quality, try https://www.jcrew.com or if you want to be adventurous https://makia.com/

Alright, internet stranger, I'm sorry to have upset you. If you genuinely love Adidas track suits and the Nike swoop on your hat and the LV on your bag, then fly that flag high and proud! No one can stop you.

Please don't do flamewars or tit-for-tat spats on HN and especially please don't cross into personal attack. We're trying for just the opposite here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You're right. My apologies to the community and @idopmstuff

Why are you so angry about clothes? You seem to have huge empathy troubles.

Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. We ban accounts that do that.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site to heart, we'd be grateful.

I buy whatever sneakers are currently on sale at Costco when I need new ones. There is usually a logo, I don’t think anyone looks at me askance.

Your solution is to spend hours upon hours of research and spend more money on a product to avoid a logo, which most people actually don’t ever notice or care about.

Why would someone be embarrassed about common projects?

Did not expect a reference to that viral common projects vid on here haha. Though I did snatch a decently used pair of achilles for $60 and have been my go to for the last three years (the soles r now smooth as a rock so I have been wearing them less out of caution). But I absolutely love those shoes: ridiculously comfortable, easy to clean, go with literally everything.

Now I can’t say they’re worth $450 or whatever. And no idea if they’re better than Koio’s—had I found a used pair of those for cheaper, I’d own those instead. So with all things, YMMV. I agree with the sentiment of “don’t equate brand/price with quality” tho

Learn to recognize quality by sight, particularly by stitching and materials, not logo.

Logos are not emblematic of quality, but of good marketing (shoes aside - Nike makes good sneakers).

Do you ever buy anything online? You are taking this really self-righteous, “explain yourself” attitude while seemingly not understanding that you are the one who is odd.

Yeah, any truly talented couturier can simply lick the monitor to get a sense of the product they're looking at.

Because, as he said, it's NOT necessarily equivalent quality. Yes, often it is, but also quite often it's utter crap that falls apart.

For these particular type of products - and I'm not claiming this is true in all product categories! - that logo does in fact mean it is a quality, well tested product.

Is your statement not a false dichotomy?

I like 1 particular brand of backpack with a slightly prominent logo on it.

I do not believe there is an equivalent quality made by a brand without the logo I buy.

You could replace the example with cars, the point is more obvious IMO. Try buying a car with no logo.

You'll find one, but it probably won't be the car that you wanted the most nor the one that fitted your needs the best.

It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Thanks. I forgot the exact quote, found it searching the internet on some shady quote aggregator site, but no attribution...

Presumably, the poor here asking for money is beggars literally just asking for money while advertisements are telling you about things you could get with money. It's a nice quip but it doesn't represent reality at all.

This sounds backwards to me. The way I experience it, the reality of advertisements is that they are attempts at manipulating me, and the framing as mere news about nice things is part of the trick.

You brought up my pet peeve... it's really difficult for me to shop for sports/outdoorwear. I absolutely can't stand being a walking billboard. The worst part is I'm paying to be one. grrrr.

I try to find clothing that has no logos or logos that are easily removed (Eddie Bauer, for example). It's a pain, though.

Logos on shoes are useful. Here's how I used to buy shoes:

1. Go to a Payless ShoeSource store.

2. Find the sneaker (AKA trainers, tennis shoes, kicks, takkies, sportex, and many other names depending on where you are in the world) aisle.

3. Look at the logo on the shoes I'm wearing.

4. If they have the same shoes in my size, and I don't see any others that are noticeably less expensive, buy those shoes again.

5. If they no longer have the same shoes or there are shoes that are noticeably less expensive, try on shoes to find out what they have that is comfortable and ergonomic. Then pick a pair and buy them.

I say "used to" because after 40 years of buying shoes that way Payless closed. When the announced they were going to close I went to the two local Payless stores and bought all the comfortable ergonomic sneakers in my size. I have not yet settled on a new shoe buying strategy.

Payless filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and hasn't had a brick and mortar store in years. It begs the question: how often are you buying in a physical store?

> I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads. If I lost that option, I would not watch YouTube. Same with all of the other streaming services. Netflix pushed it last year with preview rolls. It was barely acceptable/tolerable. But I will eagerly jettison any service that makes me pay for ads.

Well, Amazon will include an ad-free option that you can pay more for.

I think it makes sense to think of this is a price hike for the current service, combined with a new ad subsidized service offering.

They probably realized that a price hike with no alternative would cost subscriptions, and just shoving existing customers into the new worse service at the old price point would retain them longer.

For 50 years of my life, my dad always finalized a deal for a new car with one last requirement: the car must be free of all dealership logos (back then the dealership glued - or in some instances screwed - the dealership placard/logo onto the back trunk of the car). He was nasty about it and it always made me cringe. But they also always complied.

We still do this today. It's not that uncommon an ask. Get it added as a sales note on the contract, and don't accept delivery unless they have complied. We tend to have heavily branded number plate holders and window stickers.

Agreed.

I'm somewhat furious at Apple for having ads for their other shows before showing me what I've selected to watch on Apple TV+. Is there any way to disable that?

On tvOS:

Settings -> Accessibility -> Vision -> Motion -> Auto-Play Video Previews -> Off

It actually seems to work. Amazingly well hidden, I must say. Bravo.

-> Accessibility -> Vision -> Motion ->

Agreed, no other reason other than to make it harder to find, shameful.

I wonder are we thinking about the same thing - I assumed the original poster was referring to the pre-roll trailers that play ahead of an episode of a TV show or film. I tried this setting but unfortunately it doesn't seem to remove those... does it do that for you?

I was thinking about those pre-roll trailers, yes. It seemed to remove them for me, but perhaps it was a random false "negative".

Awesome! Thank you!

I don't suppose that there's a way to do something comparable for Netflix auto-previews? I'm about to give up on them permanently because of that....

I actually don’t mind this - there skippable, not disruptive to the show itself, and sometimes I learn about a new to me show I want to watch.

> I flat out do not watch ads. If a platform has ads, I do not watch it full stop. I pay YouTube for no ads.

Great. Now you can pay 3 dollars for no ads on Prime Video if you want it too.

Did this simple take have to be embedded in so much judgement and moral grandstanding?

I don't watch any video content with ads. Every time I try Hulu again, I quickly get so fed up that I quit whatever that show is before that episode is over. Or movie, or whatever.

I'm happy to pay a premium price for not having ads on Prime, or AppleTV, or Disney+, YouTube, etc.... And if there's stuff out there that is not available ad-free, then I just don't watch it.

I also run my browsers with all ad-blocking features and add-ons turned up as high as possible.

And I don't wear branded clothing. At least, not obviously branded clothing -- there might be small tags or logos discreetly displayed, but nothing that is readable by anyone who isn't standing close enough to me to shake my hand.

> I flat out do not watch ads

You must not have lived before the Internet or streaming video.

There used be this thing called Cable TV, where every few minutes the show was interrupted to show several 30 second commercials. You could not skip them.

There was no amount of money you could pay to avoid this horror. Only the strongest of humans had what it took to go without. The rest of us were brainwashed into buying detergent.

I wear some brands, but I buy them at the discount/clearance store, I'm not directly looking at buying specific brands, most of the time. However, in the case of some brands (e.g. Vans in my case) I just... genuinely enjoy their stuff. Is it that weird to have preferences?

Do Vans have logos? I wear a pair of white Vans in Summer.

Most have the logo on the tongue and behind the heel too. Some designs have it on the shoe too. They also have clothing and accessories where the logo can be rather prominent.

For certain items it is part of the cost for the quality of good being procured at a given price point. I’m sure there are no-label options of equal quality and comfort, but the process of finding those options is a much greater (time) cost than the item itself is worth to me.

In a different context, if an artisan knows they are the best (by a large margin) and put their mark on every item produced, few seeking the artisan for their quality would stop using that artisan due to the mark as the alternative would be inferior goods. Same thing but much bigger scale, with a dash of marketing and broken trust (brand acquisitions followed by bad products) thrown in.

I would understand if the choice were good quality with logo versus questionable crapshoot with no logo. That's not usually the option, though. Perhaps you can't just look at clothing and see whether it is quality or not? Look at the stitching and materials, for instance? I happily pay more for good quality, no-logo than, frankly, logo with middling quality.

Good luck checking out the stitching on Amazon. Even if you can see it in a picture, the item in the picture might not be the one you’re getting.

And good luck finding “no brand” options in a Brick and Mortar store.

It's signaling. Wearing prominent logos sends yourself and others a message that you have the disposable income to pay twice as much for a version of the thing that has a special picture on it.

Yes, agreed. It still does not explain the practice in a way that makes sense to me. There are so many and much better ways to signal disposable wealth. To me it immediately signals "more money than sense".

I think there are multiple sides to this. Some people legitimately do not care whether or not they wear branding or at least prefer to be assured of reliability of the clothing fit and quality. This approach isn't necessarily more expensive either. Something from Nike, Adias, UnderArmor sold at a discount, say at Nordstrom Rack, is superior in quality to the destined-for-landfill clothing of H&M and Primark.

I don't like branding either. For normal cotton wear, it's largely Uniqlo peppered with more unique pieces from minimally branded designers. For sportswear I tend to purchase from Lululemon because it's high quality and minimally branded. However, I understand it would be much cheaper to buy a bunch of discount Nike, Adias, or New Balance clothing. So I don't necessarily associate overt branding with disposable wealth per-se and I would say it depends on the brand and the context the clothing is being worn (but maybe that's only because of my understanding of brand differences). I would assume someone wearing all Lululemon to be more wealthy than someone wearing all Adidas even though it's less branding.

That said, certain designer brands serve only to be a status symbol like Gucci, LV, Supreme, Kenzo, Bathing Ape, Off-White, Balenziaga..the list goes on. Hell, at least if someone is driving a Mercedes or BMW they're getting a well built car, there's almost no excuse to pay more than $50 for a T-shirt just because it's from Fendi or Maison Kitsune.

As we pointed out in other comments, sneakers are an exception and it's almost impossible to find decent sneakers without branding and this probably has to do with the economies of scale.

> To me it immediately signals "more money than sense".

There is an amount of money one could have that no amount of sense could make up for.

In reality flagrant wealth is often tied to poor financial decisions that have lead to a lack of actual wealth.

> There are so many and much better ways to signal disposable wealth.

These are not mutually-exclusive options.

I mean, for clothing it is. I do not associate logos with wealth. I've seen plenty of people who have very little money wearing logos, but none wearing Loro Piana.

That's because Loro Piana T-shirts don't have the logo on them. They do, however, cost many hundreds of dollars [1] so if your eye is discerning enough to spot one you can be sure the person wearing it comes from serious money. It's similar for other high-end lines like Hermes. To spot them you have to be in the know. Indeed, the ability to spot these well-disguised high-end products is itself social signalling among the extreme high end of wealth. (The same phenomenon exists in other Veblen goods, like wine.)

Louis Vuitton, on the other hand, famously has its logo all over its products [2]. But even there you kind of have to know what you're looking for. It doesn't jump out at you the way a Nike logo does.

---

[1] https://us.loropiana.com/en/p/man/polo-and-t-shirts/soft-t-s...

[2] https://us.louisvuitton.com/eng-us/products/monogram-gradien...

I think we're talking past / agreeing with each other? Anyway, there are such amazing clothes out there in all price ranges, and people can look so good in them that I feel if people are wearing logos they haven't "read the user's manual". Just aren't even trying.

I know my attitude puts some people off, and I really do understand why, but it's not out of class snobbery, it's that I find advertising so visually repulsive.

Honest question. Where you buy your clothes from? As much as I would like to buy clothes without logos, they are not easy to find where I live.

I live in Finland. My favorite place to get sportswear and just daily wear is H&M. No logos. My favorite design house is Makia. Really amazing stuff. https://makia.com/ but if it has a big-assed Makia logo I don't buy it.

When I lived in New York there were so many options it was hard to choose, but I'd check out used clothing boutiques for fun things.

FWIW, in the US, H&M is known for fast-fashion, garbage-tier clothing. I've heard the brand is better outside the US, though.

Hmm. You may be right. Here is the men's pants section on the Finnish site https://www2.hm.com/fi_fi/miesten/osta-tuotteen-mukaan/housu...

Equivalent items do generally look better, to me at least, compared to the US

https://www2.hm.com/en_us/men/products/pants.html

Equivalent prices, too.

For example, compare the "cargo joggers" Finland https://www2.hm.com/fi_fi/productpage.1002227020.html

to the equivalent item from the US store https://www2.hm.com/en_us/productpage.1002227011.html

To me the one available from the Finnish store has a better cut and seems to be made of a thicker material.

If I lived in the US in a place that didn't have many good stores around I'd buy from retailers online and try out different things. I've had luck with https://www.uniqlo.com

I keep hearing people say this, but the few things I bought there lasted many years.

You may be interested -- Karhu is from Finland and makes minimally branded sneakers

Thanks for the tip!

Had a rich girlfriend when young. Her family loved LV luggage because it lasted forever and looked perfect.

When I got rich, I bought a bunch of it for my family a long time ago and it looks to be in mint condition now, decades later. It’s also super easy to recognize on the luggage carousel. Never regretted it.

Other than that I have to admit I never pay to advertise anything. I live on a farm and dress like a plumber, so I never actually match the luggage.

> I pay YouTube for no ads

Except you still do get ads. With every single major YouTube video dropping a "now to talk about our sponsor" segment.

SponsorBlock is an amazing tool to stop this. I’m constantly surprised at how well it works.

True, but these are almost always very easily skippable.

Most people I stumble upon wearing logos due it for signaling. The logos send signals like "I can afford this", or "I'm into sports". As a side effect, they're walking billboards for the brands, but that's just that: a side effect.

I buy Nike running shoes because they are cheap, durable and comfortable, I don't actually use the to run. The other obvious answer to this question is "because they are status symbols", for some people anyway.

Shoes, sure, because they do make great running shoes, and I suppose - forgive me - if one doesn't care about making a good visual impression, they are quite comfortable for everyday wear. I'm more confused by the visors and shirts and such. Any ostensible status garnered by being an ad is immediately overbalanced by the questionable taste and decisions of its wearer.

You seem to be going to great lengths to avoid confronting the fact that most people simply don't care about logos, or, if they do, are doing it to fit in with whatever crowd they're a part of.

I think the OP was more focused on basic clothing items and accessories like tee shirts with logos.

I would give their running shoes a pass as my downshifters are amazing - they make me want to run - so quite comfortable and functional. A Nike branded shirt or pants however are just decorated cloth.

The article pretty clearly states that there's an ad free tier for an extra $3 a month.

Yup. The other way to view this story is that Amazon is raising the price of Prime by $3/month and introducing a new product, Prime with Ads, that will be $3/month less than Prime.

The most relevant, succinct pair of comments

cheers!

Algorithmic ads (AA) vs plain old ads (POS).

You can opt out of ads for an additional fee. I don’t want ads either. I’ll figure out which platforms I’ll pay the no-fee level and cut some. I do have a small password sharing friend group tho — the total costs of all the streaming networks we like is getting stupid.

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