What would be evidence that SN actually is solving this problem?
Has SN clear understanding of what is the problem that is trying to solve?
How can we use SN's particular solution to the problem to influence the SN brand?
The issue nowadays is that branding became a science, a science that inverted process to accommodate marketing and incentivize sales instead of creating value, a visual place where one can manufacture value and sell it through it. A hook designed to attract and fish certain specific consumers, already indoctrinated to bite it. With time it loose its values, to big to be bitten, it get consumed, digested and ejaculated out by bacteria. Consumers need always something new to be stimulated and exited about.
Historically branding was an outcome of values embedded in the product itself through the process of making it, through the aim its creator wanted to communicate. It was a effect, not a cause.
Most Swiss watchmakers became insolvent or close to it and were sold. But not all of them. A handful survived as independent companies. And the way they did it was by transforming themselves from precision instrument makers into luxury brands.
In the process the nature of the mechanical watch was also transformed. The most expensive watches have always cost a lot, but why they cost a lot and what buyers got in return have changed completely. In 1960 expensive watches cost a lot because they cost a lot to manufacture, and what the buyer got in return was the most accurate timekeeping device, for its size, that could be made. Now they cost a lot because brands spend a lot on advertising and use tricks to limit supply, and what the buyer gets in return is an expensive status symbol.
In a consumerism world, look's like Branding ~Design matter everyday more:
That turns out to be a profitable business though. The Swiss watch industry probably makes more now from selling brand than they would have if they were still selling engineering.
Would SN get this some day? There are always two options, one exclude the other:
Branding as durable outcome of value, communicated directly through the open-source product.
Manufacture a brand to hook more plebs, having them paying for it, exponentially increase revenue and satisfy investors relations.
There are only two ways to combine branding and good design. You can do it when the space of possibilities is enormously large...
The other situation when branding and good design can be combined is when the space of possibilities is comparatively unexplored. If you're the first to arrive in some new territory, you can both find the right answer and claim it as uniquely yours. At least at first; if you've really found the right answer, everyone else's designs will inevitably converge on yours, and your brand advantage will erode over time.
... if you do not establish as pioneer at the start.
One obvious lesson is to stay away from brand. Indeed it's probably a good idea not just to avoid buying brand, but to avoid selling it too.
Has SN clear understanding of what is the problem that is trying to solve?
The issue nowadays is that branding became a science, a science that inverted process to accommodate marketing and incentivize sales instead of creating value, a visual place where one can manufacture value and sell it through it. A hook designed to attract and fish certain specific consumers, already indoctrinated to bite it. With time it loose its values, to big to be bitten, it get consumed, digested and ejaculated out by bacteria. Consumers need always something new to be stimulated and exited about.
Historically branding was an outcome of values embedded in the product itself through the process of making it, through the aim its creator wanted to communicate. It was a effect, not a cause.
In a consumerism world, look's like Branding ~Design matter everyday more:
Would SN get this some day? There are always two options, one exclude the other:
... if you do not establish as pioneer at the start.