Goodthreads Men's Slim-Fit Short-Sleeve Cotton Crewneck T-Shirt, Faded Grey, X-Small

On the extreme end of "brand value you've got Kanye West selling a 100% cotton t-shirt for $120. (1)

On the other end you've got Amazon not even bothering with a logo and selling a 100% cotton t-shirt for $14.99. (2)

And the Amazon shirt is rated 4.5+ stars.

As a consumer I love what Amazon is doing,

Retail "brands" are the most notorious of all of the middle men.

And they had to be - how do you deliver a product to a physical retail location that needs at least a 2 - 3x on each product sold to pay the rent, the front of house employees, etc?

As a result these "brands" were never product innovators, mostly they're perfunctory with giant marketing budgets to build their "brand value".

Remember Nike's "pumps" innovation back in the day? Was that a product innovation or was that a marketing innovation?

And this reality in retail brands has led to all sorts of notorious abuses - on the subject of Nike they famously figured out how to arbitrage child labor - relying on shit hold labor conditions for ~30 years until they got caught truly well and good with their pants down w/a famous LIFE Magazine story.(3)

Amazon's supply chain innovations flattened the market, and now we see cases as laid out here where the overseas factory owner is building the brands, or building the brands in collaboration with Amazon. It's not going to be perfect, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Amazon is clearly in the middle of calibrating their own own morale compass, but as a consumer I delight in seeing the mid-market retail kings getting stomped on.

(1) https://www.okayplayer.com/news/style-kanye-west-apc-120-pla...

(2) https://www.amazon.com/Goodthreads-Short-Sleeve-Crewneck-Cot...

(3) http://mallenbaker.net/article/clear-reflection/nike-and-chi...