They say 'haha people will pay loads to see our names on stuff even if there's no other discernible difference in quality! haha conspicuous consumption and class signalling are great! lol'

Rolex makes some pretty high-quality watches.

Sure, but their price is entirely about what people are willing to pay and not at all connected to the cost of production. There are some Swiss watches that take an incredible amount of work by highly skilled craftsmen to make, but that's not Rolex. They're cranking out a million watches every year thanks to automation.

> their price is entirely about what people are willing to pay and not at all connected to the cost of production

You have a source on that?

The watches are not expensive to make, they are expensive to sell. The marketing and sales costs are going to be higher than the actual manufacturing.

This is one estimate saying it's between $300 and $800:

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-actually-cost-Rolex-t...

Even if that's wrong, it's certainly under $1000. Gold ones will be higher, of course.

That makes sense if you are paying for cachet (conspicuous consumption)... And the majority of Rolex and LV buyers are.

But most brands do not carry that cachet.

Sure, I get that. They're Veblen goods.

Rolex bums me out though because I really like a few of their watches. I just can't get over having their brand name and logo appearing so many times on the watch. It feels tacky to me.

Well if money is speech their marketing departments are chatterboxes.