This is dope.
As a straight dude, my first internal knee-jerk reaction was “this is such a stupid solution to a stupid problem”, but then my mental “Don’t be an asshat because not everybody is like you” guard rail kicked in.
Clearly this is a product for a market of people that it works for and I’m happy for them. Enjoy your neat keyboard thing, long nailed peeps.
you’re absolutely right. this is a stupid solution for a stupid problem. But you’re also right that this is a product for a special subset of people that need this and whom this works for.
Both can be true.
That’s the nice thing about capitalism (free market economics actually): You don’t have a authority that decides what is useful and useless, what gets produced and what doesn’t. Because in the End, everything is useless. I have a robotvac because I’m too lazy to vacuum myself. Stupid and Lazy. I have a Vacuum cleaner because I’m too lazy to use a Broom. Stupid and Lazy.
So yes, it’s both. Stupid solution to a stupid problem. But it’s also a great product that solves a problem that a subset of our population has and therefore useful.
You don’t have a authority that decides what is useful and useless, what gets produced and what doesn’t.
Well sort of, the “authority” in the case of a truly free market is The Market (or The People, if you will.) If it sells it sells, if it doesn’t it doesn’t, The Market will decide.
That said, I agree with the rest of your statement and realize that you meant authority in a truer sense, and I in more of a metaphorical sense.
*want
People want this, they don’t need it. Because nobody needs to have nails like that - they choose to. If they want to look silly, that’s their prerogative, but let’s not call it anything other than a personal choice and not a necessity.
But if you have the nails, then you need something to make it easier to type, assuming your job involves a lot of typing. Just because the need was created by fulfilling a want doesn’t make it less of a need, because at the end of the day, anything could be reduced down to wants instead of needs, and that’s not helpful.
Exactly. There are a ton of stupid products out there, and ecosystems around those stupid products, and I think that’s awesome. Variety is the spice of life after all. For example:
- self-driving cars - if we had properly designed cities and infrastructure, we wouldn’t need cars in the first place
- shampoos and conditioners for damaged hair - only needed because we wreck our hair with bleaches and dyes
- waist trainers/corsets - only needed because we’re lethargic and eat too much
Yet each of those has facilitated variety. Cars are an expression of what we value, hair styles are a huge part of our identities, and plus-sized product lines can build confidence and have created a market all their own. I certainly won’t ever understand a ton of the products that exist, but I like that those products exist, because it means that there’s a ton of variety in how we live our lives.
So yeah, keep making weird solutions to unnecessary problems. But at the same time, let’s try to do it in a way that doesn’t destroy our planet.
