A Logo on a Prosthesis Is Like a Tattoo You Didn't Ask For | Hacker News Reader

A Logo on a Prosthesis Is Like a Tattoo You Didn't Ask For

theatlantic.com

62 pointsbookofjoe63 comments

There is no vendor lock-in quite like prosthetic or implant vendor lock-in.

BAHAs and Cochlear implants are prosthetic ears. They both involve putting company-specific hardware in your body that is incompatible with competitors. Sometimes due to insurance changes, you have to get surgery to get new compatible hardware in your body and bones.

Bone integrated limb prosthetics are similarly a thing and similarly affected. Prosthetics with electronics can even be effectively remotely disabled if the user doesn't bring them in for maintenance (pay more money)

Having your body part branded can at least be painted over.

Yeah, I've seen some of this happen to a couple of friends. I really, really hope that I never have to have any electronics embedded in me. Being so vulnerable to the whims of these companies is a scary prospect.

Repo Men (2010) with Jude Law and Forest Whitaker - not so far fetched.

It's interesting to me that this happens in an industry where the entire business is one of trying to aid someone who's lost something precious. Some things shouldn't have corporate branding. They definitely know better.

I bet they did it without even thinking once about it, let alone thinking twice. In modern culture branding is on everything and most people see nothing wrong with it. From where I am sitting now I can look around and see hundreds of logos.

I don't like this and think prosthetic manufacturers particularly shouldn't do it, but it would really surprise me if anybody in the company even had a personal unvoiced doubt about doing it.

> In modern culture branding is on everything

Truth.

I've had a habit of removing all branding I can from the things I buy (particularly clothing) for most of my life. That got me to tune into it, and when you tune into it, you can't help but notice it's literally everywhere.

Likewise! A seam ripper is helpful. For logos which are molded in, I have a collection of patches I can sew on; better a pretty ornament, or at least a symbol of something I care about, in place of some advertising.

No doubt: If tombstones would move around in public, they would be branded for decades already...

"I branded his stone with Pepsi, because he always drank Pepsi..."

I'm not sure they would like that branding, seeing as soda drinkers will have on average shortened lifespans.

Pretty sure average life expectancy has gone up since soda was invented ;)

Pepsi would not want its logo on a tombstone even if pepsi was good for your health and everybody knew it.

Few companies want you to think even in passing "this guy used their products and now he is dead"

The general trend yes, but compare the population of water drinkers against soda drinkers and I bet you won't find a positive correlation.

Any business is trying to make money. Helping people is a byproduct, always. It’s up to regulators and end customers to make sure the byproduct remains.

https://archive.ph/n3Zw2

Classic New Yorker cartoon: https://condenaststore.com/featured/if-my-mother-and-father-...

By the same author (2022):

>Go ahead and stare at my prosthetic arm. I know it’s awesome.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/09/19/prosthet...

https://archive.ph/D6WlU

Awesome it is. But I don't see any logo in any of those pictures. Wonder if she received a new one.

I've just spent a half-hour looking high and low for a picture of the one she described in detail in her Atlantic article but found nothing.

I wonder if the Atlantic opted not to show a picture because of the critical tone of the article and fear of igniting legal action by one or more of the four companies — BeBionic, WillowWood, Ottobock, BOA — cited.

That would be my guess.

I take the branded license-plate holders off my cars, and I'd debadge them if there was a user-serviceable way to do it. An orange branding label on my hand would be absolutely disgusting.

This is one of the first questions I ask when buying a car. Do you put that stupid badge on everything you sell? I make it clear no sale if they do. I bought the car, you made your money, I'm not advertising for you, end of transaction.

Higher end German cars typically have a badge delete factory option. I have an older Porsche that came without badges from the factory.

I also think it is in poor taste to have prominent logos or brands on a product… if the manufacturer is going to use me for advertising that needs to be explicitly the deal: they provide the product free, and then we can negotiate how much they will pay on top of that.

I'm not talking about brand badges, I'm talking about the tacky dealership badges they put on aftermarket.

Oh, some of those are the _worst_. My wife bought a car, and the dealer had gone beyond the usual decal and license plate holder, and had put an insert in the third brake light. E.g., every time she touches the brake, it's flashing this dealer's name. Clearly, this was not going to fly, but I was amazed that they tried.

Wow, that's pretty insane. Never seen that before!

Ahhh… yeah I would not tolerate that either, but I don’t buy cars from dealerships- they are middlemen in the business of ripping you off. They already had to buy it at a market rate and added no value, so can’t make anything unless they overcharge you.

I think that's an oversimplification. The market rates for wholesale, private sale, and retail are different. Selling a vehicle to a private party always nets the seller more cash than selling the same to a dealer. As a private buyer, you would have a very difficult time trying to buy a vehicle direct from most manufacturers.

As another said, this is due to lobbying, but that doesn't change the fact that the markets are different.

Fair point for new cars, I neglected to state I was only talking about buying used cars. Personally, I buy used cars because the amount of depreciation makes them an incredibly good deal, it seems to be an irrational cultural thing. I find it amusing that I get comments like "I didn't know you were so rich" for driving an old Porsche Boxster I got for $8k on Craigslist... always stored indoors and looks like new- and has been as reliable as a new car in 4 years of commuting. A new low end economy car at 3x the price is way too expensive for me.

Most individuals selling a used car, especially wealthier ones, aren't too interested in getting the most money from it, but just want it gone to move on with their lives. Not so with dealers, if they can't get you to pay a huge margin over what they bought it for (a price you could also buy one for) they'll wait for another buyer.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to buying used cars from a dealer, but when I've researched fair market prices, I've usually not been able to talk them down to anywhere close to them... whereas I've had many times where private sellers took an incredibly low ball offer I wasn't really expecting them to take.

In the US, in most cases you have to go through a dealer due to lobbying.

When it comes time to settle up the car purchase just adjust the total for the monthly rental of advertising space on your car. Say, $200/month, 5 years in advance?

How do you feel about branding on the bus you ride?

The way city busses are crammed full of commercial advertisements is one of the reasons I hate riding them.

They just told you they bought a car, so why would they take the bus?

Also, you've totally missed the point. They own the car. A person riding the bus does not own the bus nor get a say in how the bus is decorated

No, they just told us that they refused to buy cars without branding. I was forced to assume they're transit-bound.

Read again.

The first thing I did when I drove my new Jeep Wrangler home was get out my tools and remove about six different brand labels. There are two remaining, one cut out of the rear bumper and one embossed in the metal of the rear gate. Praise to Chrysler for attaching the other labels in a way that I could remove them without damage. This is generally how I treat brand labels when bring something home. I use a thread puller to remove logos from clothing. I keep flat nail polish to paint over other cases. If I got a prosthesis with a logo I'd try the same, and at least manage to cover it up a bit.

I figure if they want me to display their brand they can make an endorsement agreement with my agent. As soon as someone asks for my agent's number I'll hire one. First I'll see if Deloris Jordan is available.

Wearing my own branded shoes would be nice. Yes I will take that deal with Nike. They can put a small swoosh on there too, for even more money.

Removing the badges is pretty easy with some dental floss, a hair dryer or heat gun, and Goo Gone. Lots of how-to videos on the Internet. They're just plastic held to the paint with some adhesive, and the adhesive deteriorates at temperatures much less than what would damage the paint.

But if people don't complain now, maybe they get harder to remove tomorrow?

At least on my car, the name of the model is stamped into the steel.

Filler and paint can fix that up.

I would bet a huge majority of ALL buyers of high-end vehicles would opt in if asked whether they wanted brand logos on their expensive purchases/leases.

I would also bet that a huge majority of HN readers would opt out.

Look at high end German cars on the road- Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and see what portion are missing the badges, because they all offer a "badge delete" factory option. I'd say it's roughly 10-20% that opt in.

It's considered sort of a cool thing with car enthusiasts and often makes the used model slightly more desirable and unique. I suppose it means that you care more about driving and not impressing other people, or you care about trying to impress other car nerds with the implication.

I accept your challenge! From today on I'm gonna keep track and when I tally 100 or so total I will report my results here, prolly via an Ask HN post. Stay tuned.

>It's considered sort of a cool thing with car enthusiasts and often makes the used model slightly more desirable and unique.

I'm unclear: which option is "considered sort of cool..."?

> which option is "considered sort of cool..."?

badge delete

If you're going to analyze which percentage of cars are ordered which badge delete, you will first need to know which can be ordered with it.

From Wikipedia entry on Debadging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debadging

>Some people driving high-end luxury cars do it so as not to flaunt the fact their car is any different from any other model and remove the badge. In Europe in particular, it is a common request for purchasers of high-end models of cars like BMW or Mercedes-Benz, etc. to have the emblems removed.

Since I am in the U.S., I need to contact my local Mercedes and BMW dealers and ask if their cars can be ordered without the badge. Stay tuned.

The wikipedia article you posted has a link to the Porsche configurator- you can see the option on the "build your car" configurators from most companies, if they offer it.

I think the real tricky thing would be knowing which historical models and years offered it, to analyze cars on the road. I'd propose restricting to specific models where you know it was offered the entire range of years it was sold.

Problem is, you're not going to see 100 of the cars anytime soon on regular roads, but you might be able to in an hour or so if you go to the right yacht club and country club parking lots.

"Problem is, you're not going to see 100 of the cars anytime soon on regular roads..."

You got that right!

Here in Podunkville aka Charlottesville, Virginia, I'd have to camp out on Emmett Street, our busiest road, for some time to tally 100 of them.

I suppose I could sneak into Farmington Country Club, our most elite such establishment, to survey the parking lot, but now that they've got motion detectors and facial recognition cameras on 24/7, it might not be the best idea I've had so far today....

Contrary to popular image, most country clubs and yacht clubs are just community clubs for people that like golf and sailing respectively, and try to be welcoming and affordable rather than exclusive. Most are neither expensive nor fancy, and often are run mostly by retiree volunteers that work for free. Often they don't even own the buildings or land but lease them from the city, under agreements that require them to provide things like free or cheap access and youth classes.

Most such places are actually open to the public either all of the time, or at specific times... but possibly not to creepy people "surveying the parking lot."

>Annual dues for Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia range from $5,001–$10,000. The club also has an initiation fee of $50,001–$75,000.

I don’t go as far as the car, but I do strive to not have branding on most everything else, but specifically clothes.

A logo on a shirt is pretty much a non-starter.

Depends for me. Some small company, I’m fine with supporting them. The H&M of this world, they’d have to pay me, a lot.

Reading comments on this article it occurred to me that there is probably a huge overlap of the Venn diagrams of HN readers and Muji aficionados.

I wouldn't mind a logo on my 100k prosthetic but only if they're paying for it.

Thats a very very dominant logo on a very dominant position.

What a weird analogy. Putting a logo on any product is called branding. So a logo on a prosthesis is just having a branding on oneself. Which is a much more powerful analogy, even at the cost of being a tasteless pun.

It's actually a perfect analogy, IMO. Tattoo, is a form of (typically chosen) self-branding. A lot of companies make great products and then deminish them by thier mis/use of branding. Usually in a tactless way. This is a prime example of that.

A lot of people buy products because of the branding. How many people would buy a YETI cooler if or a Coach bag if it didn't have the branding to show off that they have a YETI cooler or a Coach bag? It's conspicuous consumption.

I think those two in particular might be poor examples, since they generally do quite a bit of de-branding on their products. I know what you mean however. Supreme is a prime brand for this. Nobody is buying a Supreme t-shirt for any other reason than the logo. Whatever thoughts on people who buy things to impress others may be, those kind of people exist and to each thier own. They at least made the choice to let everyone else know what they value.

I see where you're coming from, but a prosthetic arm is someone's arm. Mentally it very quickly can become something you identify with, like a prosthetic arm basically being YOUR arm.

When you then have your prosthetic then being an advertisement, it can have an impact on your relationship with the device.

I don't want someone branding my arm and I can see why others would feel the same.

> I don't want someone branding my arm

That's exactly the point of my analogy?

You're right -- I totally misread what you said. Sorry!

I think tattoo does imply more of a permanence and familiarity in regards to the relationship someone would have with a tattoo on a part of their body they're born with, but I do see your point as well.

Wow. American business is just not afraid to absolutely shit all over human dignity.

> The first time Angel Giuffria saw the logo on her bionic hand, she felt a sense of pride. [..]

> But the more she stared at the brand’s orange-and-black logo slapped across the top of the hand [..]

> Not everyone minds the branding. [..]

Not to nitpick, but it would be so much easier to align on the premise and get into the topic if the author would put JUST ONE picture of such a branded prosthesis somewhere in the article, at least as a reference...

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