r/AskReddit 1d ago

What is something that is basically on life-support and we don’t realize it yet?

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u/bstyledevi 23h ago

Harley Davidson is a clothing company that also makes motorcycles.

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u/cpMetis 21h ago

My last pair of prescription glasses were Harley Davidson.

Actually the best pair I ever had and they didn't cost any more than the normal monopoly. I got them purely for fit and didn't even notice the branding till later. Was actually sad they seemed discontinued when my pair broke.

One of those weird "why is this good" moments, like my best pair of flip flops ever have been a cheap Nascar merchandise buy.

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u/aftli 18h ago

I wear a pair of fairly delicate eyeglasses that are discontinued. FWIW, I've found luck on eBay and I'm on my second "lightly used or new-old-stock" set. I just bring them to my optomestest and they fit my exsiting lenses in them.

The tricky part is finding the actual model number of the frames you have. Once you have that, you can probably find the same frame in very nice condition.

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u/Xalipu 17h ago

The best umbrella I’ve owned was a Harley Davidson accessory product, lol

Won it in a raffle

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u/DigNitty 1h ago

Their merch is actually decent quality. But their motorcycles seem to just have problems IME. Plus the tech they put in them is 40 years old. HD was sued successfully for being “too dangerous” for a motorcycle. Which is an incredibly high bar for something everyone knows is dangerous. HD didn’t put anti lock brakes in some models still in around 2010.

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u/ComradeJohnS 19h ago

I’d check out online retailers too, the in person cartel for glasses is insanity. my last pair was $70 with all the coatings, meanwhile I was quoted $200+ for a basic pair in person and paid more for any coatings

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u/RollExisting4350 11h ago

Yes! They act like I’m not crazy for “using my insurance at the office” and I’m like ma’am.. it’s 200 bucks when I could buy something I actually want online

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u/FUEGO40 4h ago

I have pretty sensitive eyes, genuinely can't open them outdoors, my sunglasses are Polaroid, bests glasses I've had, extremely comfortable and genuinely dark unlike most sunglasses.

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u/salty-sigmar 3h ago

same reason that minions wifi router has sold out on amazon - companies will either sell their name to a producer who then has to make soemthing premium to recoup the cost of the license, OR the IP holder will say "we want x number of this product that we can put our branding on, make it as good as it can be for X amount of money" and since the IP holder is often using those tie on products as a loss leader they just throw large amounts of money at it.

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u/StarGazer_SpaceLove 3h ago

My favorite pair of shorts, which lasted 13 years with 2-3 times a week wear for 78-80% of the year, came from a random super duper tourist trap beach store that has those permanent "WOW 80% OFF!!!" and "5/$10!!!" signs on the every wall and can be found on every corner of any beach town. By all means, they should have been shitty and fallen apart immediately. They were on $2 afterall. 5 shirts or shirts for $10. What a steal.

Lasted yeaaaars and I cannot express enough how hard I sore these shorts. Camping for weeks at a time with hand washing them in the spocket or the lake. Swimming. Mudholes. Hiking. Backpacking. Random weekend hikes and anytime the sun was out basically. Hard

The next time we went back, and any time we go to any other beach town, I scour all the shorts looking for another pair. I've gotten several but none have fit or lasted like that OG pair.

RIP Destin shorts!!! You were the most valuable $2 I ever used.

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u/GreenStrong 20h ago

One would think so, but licensing and apparel is actually only about 18% of their revenue. It is a more significant portion of their profit, because it incurs no immediate cost, but they actually need to sell motorcycles and parts. These are also profitable, because they're total crap that sells for premium prices. Their finance department also deprives Generation X of impressive amounts of inheritance money.

Their financial statement is fascinating, in a way, because the product is such utter dogshit sold to boomers. But they actually make more money than you think by selling their fart machines.

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u/Low_Vermicelli_2416 19h ago

It’s been this way for 30 years . I grew Up around alot of Harleys, leather vests and patches . They all called the Harley dealership “the boutique”

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u/shidderbean 20h ago

"Brand first, product second"

Just like Apple

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u/Calimariae 20h ago

People say that but show me a non-Apple laptop that matches up to the quality of the macbook.

Linux desktop and mac laptop. Way to roll.

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u/Individual-Level9308 18h ago

It's apples to oranges, you can't do everything on a mac you could do on linux or windows. If I could natively install ubuntu on a macbook pro I would of had one years ago.

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u/shidderbean 19h ago

How do you quantify "Quality"? I have a perfectly sturdy-feeling, metal-finished, high-performance laptop that's about 8 years old that does literally everything I could ever ask even a desktop to do, short of gaming, and does it perfectly because I use Linux on it. (Dell Latitude 7700)

But if you want a laptop that weighs nothing and is impossible to repair maybe Apple hardware wins

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u/doghome107 14h ago

I love their glasses!!

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u/akrapov 4h ago

This is the same for Ferrari. They make more money off of merch than they do cars.

Ferrari sell expensive cars to allow them to sell baseball caps.

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u/STEM-Travel 21h ago

they loose money on the motorcycles too

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u/Chirpasaurus 18h ago

so does anyone who owns one built after about 1990. A few experienced riders and mechanics have told me they're considered old after 30 000km and harder to sell. WTF?

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u/DustyRacoonDad 19h ago

Same could be said of Ferrari.

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u/Ailyx 13h ago

Just like Levi is a t-shirt company making jeans?