I’ve got a problem. No, I have two problems. Ok, I have many problems, but for now let’s focus on just the two.
The first one should be easy: Why can’t I search Facebook ads?
I am not too keen on Facebook sticking ads in the middle of my News Feed. Usually when it is for some version of Bejeweled they are innocuous enough to skip over, but every once in a blue moon there is some ad that hits me. The latest was for a wallet that attached to the iPhone. I was not immediately intrigued, but a few days went by and I wanted to see it again. It is nigh impossible to find an old post by a friend on Facebook unless you know exactly which friend and which day, so I was not surprised that I could not search and find the ad again. And this is problem number one: Why can’t you search past ads on Facebook? It seems like common sense to me. They are there to be a money maker, nothing more. Advertising will get better (please, say it will get better) and more targeted, so the ads may actually be beneficial, but not if we can’t find them again! After searching the web for every combination of “wallet, iphone, case, wrap, money, clip, etc..” that I could think of, I finally found it.
This brings me to problem number two: Who sells a giant rubber band for $32? It is a piece of elastic and for $16 MORE you can add a piece of leather sewn on to it. The elastic can go around: your phone, your finger, your USB key, your dogs tail, the Cape of Good Hope, ANYTHING! Well, of course it can, it is a piece of elastic!! Now, the problem I have is that the site and the Web 2.0-ishness of it all is beautiful. It sucks you in and you convince yourself that you want one. After all, it can hold cash unlike this model that has to include a specific link in its FAQ to show you how to hold cash if you might want to do such a silly thing. The problem is it is just a band. A stolen office rubber band will do the same thing. Wrapping cards does not a wallet make, even if you have a cool name (TGT is pretty cool). A wallet needs cash, cards, change, and by the way none of my cards are the same size or thickness. When I finally calmed down and realized that the long hunted for ad and product were not nearly as cool as in my head I began to see clearly again. Then I ran across this:
Apparently if you take an everyday object (rubber band), add some color, and jack the price up 5,000% you can get 7,500 idiots to pony up $300,o00 in working capital for you to make MORE colorful rubber bands. This is what is wrong with America. Are we so vain that we need to have a product manufactured (in America!) for us instead of just rigging it ourselves? Maybe. Maybe we cannot pull out that stack of cards with a rubber band, but colorful elastic leftover from Evil Knievel’s jump suit, now that is fashion. I fear for our future. Worse yet, if this is my issue now, I fear what the fashion gods will dictate by the time my kids are of an age to care.
If you are into this sort of thing and want to shop for perfectly useless items in a beautiful setting check out here as well:
