alt Hacker NewsOff topic i know but, who goes from SF to Tokyo for a 6 day "vintage shopping trip" ? Who do they think their audience is here?
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Like most things in tech, it's targeted at upper middle class or rich people since they have way way more disposable income. It's a "premium Chromebook" which, as much as I like Chromebooks, seems like you would need a lot of disposable income before considering since most actually resource intensive stuff (video games, video editing, etc) you wouldn't get a Chromebook for.
My wife and I actually went to Tokyo for a vintage shopping trip haha. I went to Shinjuku to buy vintage camera lenses and she went to Omotesando to buy a vintage bag. I mean, we did other stuff besides vintage shopping too, like eating good food, but still.
From past phone launch ads, its usually the people who were always looking for dinner reservations, concert booking, meeting at drinks. Basically leisure class people. So this vintage shopping trip seems to fit right in.
The ZipAir direct flight can get you a week long trip from SF to Tokyo for ~$750 outside of peak seasons, although I'm not sure what their rates for extra bags are if you were only going to shop.
the last time I went to Japan was I think 2015 and the exchange rate was about 120 yen to the dollar. I bought almost all of the clothing that I wore for the next year or two during a stretch of three days in Tokyo. The exchange rate right now is 155 yen to the dollar and prices on everything in the US have gone through the roof, so this doesn't seem all that ridiculous to me. I am more annoyed by the assumption that I live in SF than the idea that I might go from SF to Tokyo on a vintage shopping trip.
I think half of SF that works in tech has done a 1 week tokyo trip in the past year
If you watched the rest of the announcements, apparently social media influencers.
Another perspective from the posters saying "rich people"; in most advertising, it is aimed at aspiration and not reality - so "people who want to be rich leisure class people, or social media influencers", which tracks for a low-end laptop for a younger phone-native audience.
Advertising aimed at the actually rich is usually more about saving time, "elevated" experiences, or building legacy.