TLDR Tech / Dev
The Brand Age
The Swiss watch industry faced a "quartz crisis" in the early 1970s, decimated by superior Japanese competition, unfavorable exchange rates, and the advent of highly accurate and thin quartz movements that made traditional mechanical watches obsolete. To survive, a handful of prestigious Swiss watchmakers pivoted from being precision instrument makers to luxury brand marketers, transforming their products into expensive status symbols. This might happen in tech too, due to AI, where brand becomes the primary driver of value.
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