Years ago I shared a rental property with several other folk one of whom was called Joan.
Joan wasn’t all that house proud but once in a while she hoovered her bedroom. On more than one occasion Joan complained that the vacuum cleaner wasn’t working. It was an old cylinder type cleaner with a cloth bag. Joan’s problem was caused by the bag being full. I emptied it for her and hey the vacuum cleaner worked again. The bag and cleaner functioned perfectly as was evidenced by the fact that the bag kept filling up with carpet dust and other crap.
Some genius in the hoover industry decided that there could be money in hoover bags i.e. single use bags. These were made of paper and sold for a £1 or something similar. No reusable cloth bags with new Hoovers. An excellent racket. A quid for a paper bag!!
Along came James to the rescue. He invented a hoover (a Dyson actually) which didn’t need a bag. Good for him. He had provided a solution to what had not previously been a problem. He could have brought back cloth bags but that wouldn’t do. What the public needed (apparently) was a high tech gadget, garishly coloured, sold at a high price with no bag needed. The public loved it. James made a fortune (which would lead to other problems) and the populace revelled in his success.
In the end what James created was not a vacuum cleaner. It was a brand. The cyclone principle was known about long before James came along. He just packaged it up to look good, sold it with hepa filters (we needed hepa filters) and other little thingys. And he sold them dear. Could not be any good if they were cheap. Same as wine.
Ultimately James made a fortune providing a solution where there wasn’t a problem.
Where I live there are lots of nice middle class people. They love to cut down trees and fill skips. They also love to build extensions. Nothing is as appealing to a nice middle class woman as an extension (except perhaps a large diamond ring). Extensions generally call for skips. I am surrounded by skip fillers and tree killers. Nice. And what does one find often in skips? You guessed it. Dysons. They break down a lot which is good for business.
James was a Brexiteer. (As was Tim). Brexit really didn’t affect James as he sold only a small percentage of his gadgets into the UK and manufactured outside of the EU. Some folk said they wouldn’t go to Wetherspoons as Tim was a Brexiteer and was mean to some of his staff. Not so clever Tim. Brexit did not really affect Tim as nearly all his sales are in the UK. But at least Tim does not rip people off on the price of a pint. Very much the opposite. Those boycotting Tim did they throw their Dysons out?
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