The video (embedded below) by [TechAltar] is titled “1 Month without US tech giants”, but it could have been titled “1 Month with Open Source Tools” — because, as it t…
well, maybe it helps to know that companies don’t actually want their brand name to become a generic term, even if it seems like a sign of immense success. The brand name loses its distinctiveness as a trademark. Essentially, the public starts to perceive the brand name as the name of the thing itself, rather than a specific brand of that thing.
For instance, in the UK, people still say things like, “I’m going to hoover the front room” to mean they’re going to clean it with a vacuum cleaner. Notice that the brand of vacuum cleaner doesn’t actually matter in this case - most people own non-Hoover vacuums, yet will still say, “love, get me the hoover out the cupboard”.
Other brands that this has happened to include Aspirin, Cellophane, Band-Aid.
So maybe we should actually start saying, “I’m going to google this with Qwant”. In principle, we’d be undermining and devaluing the brand.
well, maybe it helps to know that companies don’t actually want their brand name to become a generic term, even if it seems like a sign of immense success. The brand name loses its distinctiveness as a trademark. Essentially, the public starts to perceive the brand name as the name of the thing itself, rather than a specific brand of that thing.
For instance, in the UK, people still say things like, “I’m going to hoover the front room” to mean they’re going to clean it with a vacuum cleaner. Notice that the brand of vacuum cleaner doesn’t actually matter in this case - most people own non-Hoover vacuums, yet will still say, “love, get me the hoover out the cupboard”.
Other brands that this has happened to include Aspirin, Cellophane, Band-Aid.
So maybe we should actually start saying, “I’m going to google this with Qwant”. In principle, we’d be undermining and devaluing the brand.