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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

The watch is a bit odd, though? It is, far and away, more of a fashion purchase than it is anything else.

Yes, I think it has some good uses for health/fitness. I can't bring myself to think it is the driver for people buying it.

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> Yes, I think it has some good uses for health/fitness. I can't bring myself to think it is the driver for people buying it.

I think you're just mistaken, then. Health and fitness absolutely is the driver.

They tried to market it as a fashion purchase in v1, and then gave up on that. It can still be fun with different straps, but I don't know of anyone who considers it a fashion purchase.

I'm comfortable disagreeing here. Watches are, by and large, a fashion piece. Even without getting custom bands. To the point that it is not at all uncommon for people to have a watch on that is dead.

Happy to see data proving otherwise. I'm also more than willing to believe a lot of people will use some of the asserted benefits as a reason to justify getting the fashion item. But even the enthusiasts I know that get some of the health tracking rings and such drop off after a hilariously short honeymoon with the devices.

The only exception I have seen to this, so far, are active users that are more likely to have a garmin.

I think you're exactly right here. It's not that people don't think of it as a health device, and that probably helps sales via justification. But most people I know who have it, when asked, have no F-ing clue what about their health they're tracking.

And yeah, if you do care that much (amateur or pro athlete training) there's no way the A-watch is the primary device for you. Garmin is the king of the hill in that market.

I'm not sure you're wrong about "apple watch as fashion" (my gut is to disagree), but it's worth noting that apple greatly increased the size of the watch market.

That is to say: while they converted some existing watch wearers, they greatly expanded the market.

What I'm not certain of is "why". Fitness is an easy answer (that's something an apple watch does and my Seiko doesn't), but fashion is also a reasonable answer (apple is a premium brand)

I think the true answer might be "defaults are powerful"

Airpods are generally not the best sound quality you can buy, but they're well-integrated with the apple ecosystem. You can assume they'll just work. I would be surprised if they are a fashion piece, but I suspect their dominance looks similar to apple watch dominance

I am almost certainly presenting a stronger argument than I intend here. My assertion is that it is somewhat fashionable to wear a watch, and there is surprisingly little utility in it. Adding any utility is enough to get many to make the jump. (Note that this is very different than me only claiming the Apple Watch is a fashion item. Largely, my claim is ALL watches are fashion oriented.)

Do I think this is the only reason at all? Probably not. I will agree that there are certainly many people that do get it for the utility alone. Happy to see numbers going over any of this, of course. Mostly all I have to go on are anecdotes regarding Apple watches.

Charging $49.99 for each wrist band was a huge misstep in this regard. Yes, Apple does like charging high prices but the cognitive dissonance around the 'Apple Tax' is usually softened when people feel like they're getting a higher quality product than the competition. But with those wrist bands, I really don't feel like I'm getting a unique and special product for that price. If the bands were $19.99 I would have bought at least a few others. I just can't justify buying some silicone for $49.99.

garmin watches are so much better for that though.

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