Big tech fanboys LOL’ing their brands all the way to broke

One of the more fascinating phenomenons to see is how much short-term thinking fanboys of big tech, big media, big software, etc have, and how much they lack historical context. For example: About a year before I got into the mobile app game with Learnistic, I was testing putting all my videos on Vimeo, instead of YouTube. A few curious souls asked about out why I did this. And when I specifically told one of them one reason is I don’t think YouTube is going to be what it is now forever… and I am weening myself away in advance… I got the typical amusing "I don't really have a point of view just feels" fanboy reply: “LOL!!!!” Followed by a page or two of nonsensical text trying to justify their faith. The overachieving fanboy's rationalization hamster spinning was quite the spectacle, too. You could almost see the smoke from running so fast! But here's the problem: Yes, they are still around and kicking, and they are still great for livestreaming. But I hear tell YouTube alone lost some billion dollars last year. For the last few years they have been de-platforming some of their most influential users who bring in lots of traffic & de-monetizing people who think the wrong thoughts left and right. They were (maybe still are, I lost track) also under investigation for abusing children’s data, and keep flagrantly defying the feds — not to mention the many non-American governments gearing up to take a whack at ‘em. And, if someone is shortsighted enough to think all that is a recipe for long term business success… or that YouTube is even in business to make a profit anymore vs imposing some kind of bat shyt political agenda then, well, be my guest, Maynard. Same goes for Facebook fanboys. And Twitter fanboys. And Amazon fanboys. (Bezos himself declared they won’t be around forever a few years back.) And, especially Disney/Marvel fanboys — with all their inane wokeness they are going to be tripling down on going by the plans I’ve read about. In fact, The Last Jedi — after making a mockery of the very things that made the Star Wars brand popular — did $700 million less than expected. Yes, “it made a billion, Ben, LOL!!!” gross... but the net was an embarrassment for a major Star Wars movie. The last dumpster fire of a movie, that basically made the first 6 movies pointless, did even worse if you look at the net profit, and see beyond all the media reporting accounting double talk & hamster spinning. And if someone is foolish enough to believe the executives were sitting around celebrating & popping champaign for making almost a billion less than expected on each of these movies, for a sure-thing brand like Star Wars of all things… then that would be truly worthy of an LOL. But those are just a couple examples. When you look around you will see it everywhere: Including giant “can’t fail” brands sacrificing their brand power at the altar of the god of many virtue signals. Like Gillette (that lost close to $10 billion with a single #metoo-inspired advertisement)… ESPN (losing millions of viewers as they focus on scoring social justice points vs talking about, you know, sports)… Shea Moisture (there was a 100+ comment thread-hole in my old Facebook group a couple years ago, about their #EverybodyGetsLove campaign being a giant insult to the very demographic the company was founded to serve)… and the list goes on. The same forces are taking big, wet bites out of the bee-hinds of other big tech companies, too — like Patreon. All these brands collectively have been taking huge hits to their brands. Not necessarily fatal hits. But, a few more big ones and that could change... The point? There is a whole host of other big brands that are, yes, right now as I type this, very big and seem invulnerable. But when you take even a cursory look at their numbers, their agendas, and the enormous piles of debt they rely on to keep going… not to mention number-fudging and accounting tricks by Shifty The Accountant in the back room… and how much they are butchering the very things that made their brands popular and flipping the bird to their core customers… you might just see how silly the “They are too big to fail LOL!!!!” secret gurus sound to anyone with a $5 calculator and a grasp of the last 100 years of business history. Anyway, something to ponder. Especially if you want to buy & use my Brand Barbarian book. The deadline to get it at the 30% sale discount ends tonight. You have until midnight tonight (7/23) EDT. More here: Use this code at the cart: AXE And make sure you see the price change before entering your info. Ben Settle P.S. If you are interested in buying this, please read the sales letter very carefully before pulling the trigger. Especially the P.S. about the "overlapping" info. Don’t just click, add to cart, and purchase blindly on impulse. Especially since, more than any other product I sell, this book is not intended for most — or even very many — people in my Horde, for reasons that will be obvious when you finish reading the sales letter. Copyright © 2021 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: