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Comment by atomicnumber3 | Hacker News Reader

I call this "brand mining." Take a brand previously known for quality, start selling shite, and then you get to pocket the delta until the market catches on. The brand is now worthless (you've "mined" it out) but hey look at all the money you made.

Basically every 90s brand has had this happen. Typically involves PE.

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> Take a brand previously known for quality, start selling shite, and then you get to pocket the delta until the market catches on

Similarly how every former reputable consumer electronic brand from 'The West' that sells consumer stuff today like Philips, GE, Thompson, Blaupunkt, Gigaset, etc is now just a brand label for a Chinese consortium that's fully designed and made in China with zero employees in their original western roots.

Goodwill liquidation is what I’ve been calling it.

I think we might be coloring it as we’d like it to be, though. Only rarely does it end in brand death, more often they just get a bad reputation then keep going, sometimes not even less profitably. I think the intent might be more along the lines of recalibrating to a lower expectation of consumer discernment or rationality.

It's actually remarkable how long that takes. Craftsman is still chugging along 30 years later in name only.

But the brand no longer commands the massive delta, everyone knows that current craftsman is nothing like old craftsman.

It still has a pretty big delta, so much so SBD bought the name for nearly a billion dollars.

I think a lot of people realize it's not the same old company, but apparently enough don't such that it's still profitable to sell their stuff at a premium.

Havent bought a Craftsman tool in about that many years. I buy Harbor Freight tools now, if I'm going to buy a cheap made-in-China tool at least I'll buy it from a place that makes no secret about it and charges about half the price.

Messrs. Sears and Roebuck are rolling in their graves.

Reputation lag. Or just exploiting trust

I don't think thats what happened in this case. They explained it in the article. Honda was way behind in developing EVs, and as a "prologue" to their eventual EV strategy, they released a car called the Honda Prologue, which they licensed GM EV technology for. (fun fact, after Trump and the EV numbers that didn't materialize in the US, I think Honda has either delayed or scrapped a lot of their EV plans, which is unfortunate. )

Kinda like how Toyota just ignored turbos and pure EVs and instead sold cars to rich people (because rich people don't spew clapped out examples onto the used market) and now they're making money hand over fist on their reputation despite not having a competitive EV offering or being able to keep a turbo engine together but they'll still make money hand over fist for a decade because that's how long it'll take for consumers who've been astro-turfe'd at for years to realize that not everything is doctor owned, dealer serviced 2004 Solara.

Oh wait was I not supposed to say that out loud?

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