What is the most useless industry in the world?

[THE Bigzoman]

As long as there is demand for it, no industry is worthless.

[Mihalik]

Yes evolution has happened in those industries. But they will collapse. By collapse I mean it is no longer an industry aka business. Music will become free, as it should be. Art should not be a business and sooner or later it won't be.

Only one word is required to explain ALL of this: Asia. Growing Asian markets, child (and other low cost) labour, cheap material etc... everything that matters (basically only one thing: huge profit margins) in this industry is rooting from Asia.

Clothing industry and fashion industry are two separate things.

Music being free doesn't exclude it being an industry. Most of the revenue is already from advertisements, live events, brand endorsement etc. Just because it's free at the point of delivery it doesn't mean you can't turn a massive profit from it. Actually the internet makes this easier than ever before. Record and label companies are already evolving into multimedia and advertisement companies. The ones struggling are the ones who didn't understand and accept this turn of events.

Asia has been providing the fuel to the fashion industry some way or another since the time of the Roman Empire, first through Silk from China, then with Cotton from India etc. But today Asia is no longer a producer exclusively, but is also becoming a consumer. Does the industry have problems? Of course. It's as scummy and shitty as every single other consumer goods segment of the economy.

Clothing industry and Fashion industry are not separate things. They are intrinsically the same. I don't understand what you mean by them being different? Do you mean the clothing industry being the manufacturing segment alone? If that's what you mean, than how are designs supposed to be created and distributed to turn the raw goods into consumer good? And how do you supposed to deliver those goods to the users?

[Yvaelle]

Clothing industry and Fashion industry are not separate things. They are intrinsically the same. I don't understand what you mean by them being different? Do you mean the clothing industry being the manufacturing segment alone? If that's what you mean, than how are designs supposed to be created and distributed to turn the raw goods into consumer good? And how do you supposed to deliver those goods to the users?

I pretty sure he was talking about High Fashion - Clothing as Art.

The issue is he isn't recognizing that while High Fashion and Fashion are linked by their shared medium (cloth), high fashion isn't meant to make functional dayware, it's an art form - and it should be seen as such - more akin to sculpture and painting than Banana Republic and The Gap.

Seen in that light, High Fashion is artwork, it is purchased by collectors for exorbitant sums to place on display, it is designed for high fashion models who are meant to be "coat hangers with faces" (Yves-Saint Laurent's quote IIRC) - which is why high fashion models aren't attractive, and suffer from occupational annorexia (because they are supposed to be Coat Hangers, not Playboy Bunnies).

[Puupi]

Music being free doesn't exclude it being an industry. Most of the revenue is already from advertisements, live events, brand endorsement etc. Just because it's free at the point of delivery it doesn't mean you can't turn a massive profit from it. Actually the internet makes this easier than ever before. Record and label companies are already evolving into multimedia and advertisement companies. The ones struggling are the ones who didn't understand and accept this turn of events.

Exactly, the music industry is collapsing and evolving into advertisement industry. That's their form of adaptation. Some industries can't or won't adapt and just die over time; a good example is that the biggest and most wealthy company(not 100% sure about this, but this is how I heard about it) in Sweden during 1800's was a company that sold ice. Needless to say, that company no longer exists. Nor does the industry.

Clothing industry and Fashion industry are not separate things. They are intrinsically the same. I don't understand what you mean by them being different? Do you mean the clothing industry being the manufacturing segment alone? If that's what you mean, than how are designs supposed to be created and distributed to turn the raw goods into consumer good? And how do you supposed to deliver those goods to the users?

Fashion industry is all about design. And design (which, in fact, is art) being an industry is "wrong".

Fashion only (more or less) cares about the visual aspect of clothing, which makes it pretty meaningless.

Clothing design that focuses on functionality is obviously very important - we need BETTER clothes, not necessarily better looking, but better in terms of functionality. Fashion has nothing do with that.

I thought it was pretty clear he was talking about High Fashion - Clothing as Art. The issue is he isn't recognizing that while High Fashion and Fashion are linked by their shared medium, high fashion isn't meant to make functional dayware, it's an art form - and it should be seen as such - more akin to sculpture and painting than Banana Republic and Gap.

Yeah you got my point somewhat close enough

[Mihalik]

I pretty sure he was talking about High Fashion - Clothing as Art.

The issue is he isn't recognizing that while High Fashion and Fashion are linked by their shared medium (cloth), high fashion isn't meant to make functional dayware, it's an art form - and it should be seen as such - more akin to sculpture and painting than Banana Republic and The Gap.

Seen in that light, High Fashion is artwork, it is purchased by collectors for exorbitant sums to place on display, it is designed for high fashion models who are meant to be "coat hangers with faces" (Yves-Saint Laurent's quote IIRC) - which is why high fashion models aren't attractive, and suffer from occupational annorexia (because they are supposed to be Coat Hangers, not Playboy Bunnies).

Ah I see. Tho I'm fairly sure it's still not something on its way out. High end fashion companies continue making massive amounts of money. Today more than ever before the off-the-rack segment of the industry is connected to the "haute couture" (fuck if I know how it's spelled exactly) segment of the industry.

Major companies like Prada, Armani etc are expanding into the off-the-rack market through sub-brands, that still carry the name recognition of the main brands at more affordable prices. Luxury goods are also a growing market in Asia.

Fashion weeks in places like London, NY, Milan, Paris etc draw bigger crowds than ever.

I'm not defending the industry for having any benefit from it. I just incidentally know shit about it because my GF works at Prada and she does have professional interest in it all. I can tell you honestly the fashion industry in all its aspects from apparel retailers to high end "fashion houses" is literally doing better than ever.

Their growth rates are insane, they are elbow deep in the sub 30 year olds wallets. They cruised through the entire 2008 financial collapse completely unaffected, they just kept growing like insane on pretty much every market.

[Ealyssa]

By definition an industry is usefull to their client. And since they have client, it's also usefull to the makers (the money you know).

[Yvaelle]

Ah I see. Tho I'm fairly sure it's still not something on its way out. High end fashion companies continue making massive amounts of money. Today more than ever before the off-the-rack segment of the industry is connected to the "haute couture" (fuck if I know how it's spelled exactly) segment of the industry.

It's not dying out, certainly not - I don't think the person we were responding to was suggesting it was dying out, only that he thought it was useless and perhaps that it should die out (because he mistakes it for clothing, rather than sculptures of cloth).

[Bryrida]

By industry, I mean industries that are legal, so something like drug trafficking would not be considered here.

In my opinion, fashion is the most useless industry in the world. Not only does it contribute nothing to society, it is actually destructive in the sense that it increases elitism and influences people to judge others based on how expensive their clothes are. It could disappear tomorrow and the world would be better off for it.

What do you think is the most useless industry?

I don't think the fashion industry is useless, but it is flawed.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I think you just won this thread.

Entertainment industry? You'll have to get past me and my gun... Merica!

I fixed it.

[cuafpr]

Entertainment Industry... but I love movies.

yep came here to say this, most over paid people around, next would be professional sports (even though i love them way over paid).