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Digital Products You Absolutely Don’t Need.
By Craig | March 27, 2008
You have to admire the commercial spirit of the human race - it’s what got us where we are today.
Our limitless imagination means that along with all the fun stuff like sex, music and homemade meatballs, we are also able to come up with products and services that our fellow humans never knew they needed until the point comes that they discover they need them, which is a neat trick.This ability to come up with all manner of shit that we don’t need is also what drives our willingness to celebrate those people who can sell ice to Eskimos, send coal to Newcastle and so on and so forth.
The long and the short of it, folks, is that if you can’t convince people they need something, then you might as well not bother creating it in the first place. It’s a one-man-clapping thing. Kinda like making a country/folk album and then realising that you can’t sell…..oh, that’s another story.
Anyway…
Talking of stuff you don’t need, I thought one of the dumbest products I’d seen to come out of the…ahem…digital music revolution was this:
…..the USB Turntable. The premise of the USB Turntable is that converting your silly old vinyl to shiny new digital is not only a piece of piss but also a worthwhile use of your time, when neither of which could be further from the truth - Converting vinyl to digital is a long-winded process that leaves you with substandard versions of what you started with and you will never, ever get those hours back… However, the USB turntable starts to look as necessary and vital as good old-fashioned fresh air when compared with this…. 
…which is a very expensive ‘valve’ amplifier doohickey that comes with an iPod docking station. Yup, that’s an analogue ‘valve’ amplifier system for you to play your digitally compressed audio files on.
Now, on first glance this may look like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but it’s actually far, far dumber than that. So dumb and pointless, in fact, that you can comfortably expect to see adverts for it in the next issue of Observer Music Monthly. USB Turntable salesmen across the globe are jumping ship to this product as you read this.
Seriously, if you’ve bought one of the above products then please don’t bother buying our album. The rest of you should feel free to proceed to the shop or to iTunes.
(Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed the cack-handed use of sales psychology in this post)
Topics: Internet Doohickeys, Apropos of Nowt |