This forum is about our bikes and - inevitably - about us, so please allow me.
When I read the OP first time, I wondered: is he serious or pulling my leg?
Over the last years, I have seen a range of strange products been advertised for, so I decided to take it serious. If you'll allow me a side step: I can stand on my head for as long as I like, but I will still fail to see how a Motorgadget can be useful for our type of bikes. We have also seen many posts on the replacing of incandescent bulbs by LEDs. One can argue that the old bulb is better noticed, not at least by spreading its light omnidirectional, people will still buy Leds. That's how I became suspicious: maybe there's more here at play and is it the mere
buying that gives satisfaction. Could it be that folks are trapped in the socalled D.O.U cycle: Drool - Order - Unbox, which seems to bring 'happiness' to so many these days.
Ever since the mid 70s I have studied human behaviour where it concerns decisions made about buying stuff, me being specialised in
persuasive language in advertisements and politics. But the one can't go without the other and you cannot study the manipulative tricks in adds unless you oversee the whole field. It's not just looking at the language and the tricks played; you have to study the whole interaction in a consumer market. Let me limit myself to just two oldies. I cannot present these works as scientific, because they aren't, but they're easy to read by anyone. It's also to honour these American gentlemen for being trail blazers.
Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard, is a book most of you will know. It was first published in 1957. The second is Ernst Dichter's
The Strategy of Desire which followed in 1960. I admit both are oldies, but they're very accessible and still provide a good read today. Nowadays
Motivational Research is carried out much more advanced: it involves electrodes to measure the brain's activity, whilst monitoring the release of happiness hormones. Gradually we have learned more and more about how we react to stimiluses presented in adds and how we experience the chain of events which starts at the click to order a product, followed by the happy awaiting and resulting in an almost Christmas day like excitement of unboxing. We now know that we - better said: our brain - can drool like a labrador. Recently we discovered, that, even when a product in practice turns out to be of little value if at all, our brain will still remember that process: click, await, receive and unbox, as a chain of happiness. The more this cycle is repeated, the more one is at risk to become addicted and some people need to order stuff almost on a daily basis to fight of depression. The industry knows all this and is clever to hand you a 'good' reason (like brightness in K or the number of lumens) to 'help' make a decision. They know you prefer to be helped over the threshold with a 'rational argument' to silence possible other voices deep inside you. As a reward for your 'rational' decision, you'll receive 'a present' and then be able to unbox something brand new, which for some is a joy in itself.
Now am I criticising capitalism for this? No, I'm not. Capitalism is a Dutch invention and I am Dutch
. In the year1602, the first stock exchange in the world was established in Amsterdam, which event is worldwide acknowledged as the start of capitalism. To give you an idea: with the thus created funds, Dutch have been able to buy - not
steal - Manhattan from the Indians to found New Amsterdam, later renamed by the Brits as New York. No, what I
do criticise however is its counterpart,
consumerism which critic by me, some see as blasphemy. If people continue to buy products out of addiction, stuff they don't need, it's going to tax the planet in a dramatic way. More and more products will end up in garage sales, a typical American phenomenon, which reflects the vomiting in an eating disorder like bulimia.
It's a hard fact that 4-5% of the world's population (US) consumes - some say squander - 25% of the earth's raw materials. It's also a hard fact, that the US economy is for two thirds a consumer driven economy. The US can allow themselves to be in that position, as long as the dollar remains the world currency, which status provides unlimited privileges. In the meanwhile the Chinese sit and wait, whilst the rest of us watch the Americans being eaten alive and it's not a pleasant sight...
