History Main / NeverNeedsSharpening

* Another device that was trying to get funded at the time of the Juicero disaster, was "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2e1x5IaO7k SMALT - The World's First Interactive Centerpiece and Smart Salt Dispenser]]". No, your eyes are not deceiving you. An internet-connected salt shaker/dispenser with companion smart phone app. Rather than play the TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket route, they instead take it in the opposite direction by bragging about all the neat features it has compared to your average container of table salt. The average container of table salt that most people can use to season their food in less time than it takes to pull out their phone, turn on the app, select the dispenser setting and amount, set the mood lighting color, and have a conversation about the device that the company behind it advertises that it wants you to have with your dinner guests. Yes, really. Keep in mind that Internet-connected appliances that have no real need to connect to the Internet often exist primarily to obtain and sell customers' personal information. The real purpose of the SMALT wasn't to grind salt; it was to collect data the parent company could profit from. Same with the Juicero (there's a reason Google gave them tens of millions in venture capital); same with all other similar devices.

* A series of ads for speech-to-text software spouts how much more convenient it is than typing by showing actors doing chores or similar while dictating a document. Then one of the ads shows a man who's writing a saucy romance novel — then closes and hides it when his family comes home. The software frees your hands — [[ADateWithRosiePalms just make sure you're alone first]].

* When looking for jobs, a common phrase that may crop up is "flexible schedule." The most common explanation for what this means for an employee is fairly positive: that is, it allows an employee to go into work and leave at any time, as long as the total time spent equals an expected threshold of hours. However, less scrupulous employers may use it to refer to the idea that the ''employee'' should have a flexible schedule: that is, the job has a rigid schedule set by management without employee input, but it changes every week, meaning that the employee should expect that their job can call them in at any point in its working hours.

* Any time a job ad says they offer flexible scheduling, that's a "nice" way of saying "Your schedule changes by the week, making it next to impossible to have a life outside work."

* When looking for jobs, a common phrase that may crop up is "flexible schedule." The most common explanation for what this means for an employee is fairly positive: that is, it allows an employee to go into work and leave at any time, as long as the total time spent equals an expected threshold of hours. However, less scrupulous employers may use it to refer to the idea that the ''employee'' should have a flexible schedule: that is, the job has a rigid schedule set by management without employee input, but it changes every week, meaning that the employee should expect that their job can call them in at any point in its working hours.

* The Cadbury Flake chocolate bar sold in Britain, Ireland, and Australia famously crumbles into flakes instead of melting like other bars. The company claims Flakes are produced using a 'closely guarded secret process', but food scientist Ann Reardon discovered in 2021 that the bar is very similar in texture to 'seized' chocolate, a state that usually arises from improper handling and ends in the chocolate having to be discarded.

* Many [[SnakeOilSalesman Snake Oil Salesmen]] and [[WorstAid well-intentioned-but-ignorant alternative practitioners]] claim that the unpleasant side effects of their ineffective "treatments" are signs that the body is healing itself. The former group will even pick treatments that actively make the person sick to exploit this.

* ''ComicStrip/FrankAndErnest'' occasionally has fun with this in Sunday strips, with Frank looking over an advertisement Ernie has written, pointing out issues or missed points regarding his advertised item along the way, and Ernie promptly explaining how his advertisement has spun these issues into alleged positives. For instance, a run-down theater whose roof is missing is referred to as "the place to see the stars" ([[DontExplainTheJoke because you can see stars through the open roof at night]]).

* In ''Literature/DeltoraQuest'', a huckster advertises a kind of "wheel of fortune" game called Beat the Bird. The wheel has a 50-50 shot of giving the player no money back, with an effectively worthless wooden figurine of a bird as consolation, and a few options that do give the player money only let them break even (and on top of that, the game is fixed). To cover this up, he proudly declares that "every player wins a prize!", even though a comparatively small percentage will get a prize that isn't a ripoff.

* This is a common feature of [[PropagandaMachine State News]], where political and economic blunders are presented as a good thing. For example, whenever Russia does something [[EveryoneHasStandards other countries find deplorable]] and gets slapped with economic sanctions, the media is quick to point out how this is actually a good thing because it will help grow Russia's native industries. They neglect to mention that while some local industries might grow, it's probable that more will wither away because their international market becomes reduced and they can't obtain raw materials as cheaply.[[note]]While Russia in particular has immense nature resources and is a major ''exporter'' of many raw materials, they don't always have the capacity to ''process'' those raw materials into a form that their own industry can use to manufacture the finished products.[[/note]] Taking an economic hit that puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work in exchange for a few thousand new jobs is a net loss. Note that if sanctions were good for any country, they would be the ones the imposing the sanctions, not having them imposed upon. (Of course, countries sometimes do this regardless, like Russia itself with "counter-sanctions".) Same with EU’s presentation of losing its energy resources, like natural gas.

* Any game that claims "X Hours of Gameplay!" but falls under FakeLongevity under closer scrutiny. Parodied on the box of some versions of ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' (one playthrough of which is about the length of a feature film in a bid to avoid that problem) which claims some overly specific three-digit number of hours of gameplay.

--> ''Every product is unique! Because they have festival experience, these products may contain traces of creativity!''

* This is a common feature of [[PropagandaMachine State News]], where political and economic blunders are presented as a good thing. For example, whenever Russia does something [[EveryoneHasStandards other countries find deplorable]] and gets slapped with economic sanctions, the media is quick to point out how this is actually a good thing because it will help grow Russia's native industries. They neglect to mention that while some local industries might grow, it's probable that more will wither away because their international market becomes reduced and they can't obtain raw materials as cheaply.[[note]]While Russia in particular has immense nature resources and is a major ''exporter'' of many raw materials, they don't always have the capacity to ''process'' those raw materials into a form that their own industry can use to manufacture the finished products.[[/note]] Taking an economic hit that puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work in exchange for a few thousand new jobs is a net loss. Note that if sanctions were good for any country, they would be the ones the imposing the sanctions, not having them imposed upon. (Of course, countries sometimes do this regardless, like Russia itself with "counter-sanctions".)

** A sub-example of this is "folded steel." Yes, it was used to make {{katanas|AreJustBetter}}… but that's because it's a technique to remove impurities from and increase the durability of low-quality metal. Simply using good-quality metal would have the same effect, so the maker is either knowingly using bad steel, using unnecessary forging methods, or flat-out lying, none of which bode well.

* This is a common feature of [[PropagandaMachine State News]], where political and economic blunders are presented as a good thing. For example, whenever Russia does something [[EveryoneHasStandards other countries find deplorable]] and gets slapped with economic sanctions, the media is quick to point out how this is actually a good thing because it will help grow Russia's native industries. They neglect to mention that while some local industries might grow, it's probable that more will wither away because their international market becomes reduced and they can't obtain raw materials as cheaply. Taking an economic hit that puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work in exchange for a few thousand new jobs is a net loss. Note that if sanctions were good for any country, they would be the ones the imposing the sanctions, not having them imposed upon. (Of course, countries sometimes do this regardless, like Russia itself with "counter-sanctions".)

** With the rise of artificial diamonds, the current marketing spin for natural diamonds is essentially the AllNaturalSnakeOil angle: you don't want something artificial for your future spouse, you want something that was dug out of the ground. It's an odd angle to take "our product was made available through what is essentially modern slavery in terrible conditions while yours was grown in a lab at no real harm to anyone" and make out the ''latter'' as the one who should feel guilty.

* One of Nintendo's [[ProductFacelift revisions]] of the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS is cheaper than the standard version, but at the cost of not having the 3D capability that the system is named for. Nintendo compensated by advertising the "2DS" as for children, as the 3D effect of the regular 3DS could damage young eyes and the 2DS carries no risk of that. Fortunately for them this totally worked, though more so due to the lower cost making 3DS games available to people who didn't want or care about the titular aspect.

* 3DFX marketed its Voodoo line of graphics cards as not requiring users to throw out their old graphics cards. In reality, this was because the Voodoo had no 2D rendering support, and required a 2D card for that purpose, unless not being able to do any non-gaming task (such as actually ''starting'' those games) wasn't a problem for you. This was less of an issue than other examples, as most users already had suitable cards, and its 3D performance was world-class at the time. However, the reason they were doing so is immediately apparent if one were to take their early [=2D/3D=] combo cards like the Voodoo Rush and Voodoo Banshee into account- their combo cards had ''abysmal'' [=2D=] support, indicating that while their engineers are proficient at designing a [=3D=] card, designing a [=2D=] card was a difficult problem for them (the fact that the [=3D=] engine on those cards were also cut down meant they performed significantly worse than their [=3D=]-dedicated cards). Nonetheless, most recognized the technique as a "piggyback" card, similar to MPEG-2 DVD and [=VideoCD=] accelerators at the time (the late '90s). [=3DFX=] did constantly try to improve themselves tho, and by the time the [=Voodoo3=] was ready for the market, they have mastered [=2D=] acceleration enough that the [=Voodoo3=] only had a variant with a [=2D=] engine built-in, was very capable in both [=2D=] and [=3D=] acceleration.

* PC games sometimes advertise themselves on how hefty their filesize is, with the implication that they're insanely powerful or expansive, suitable for letting the strongest rigs show off what they can do. Most of the time, this actually owes to [[PortingDisaster their files not being coded well]], and the parts that deal with actual gameplay make up a small fraction of that while everything else is just random audio files that haven't been compressed properly and textures comparable to earlier games bloated out to 4K resolutions for its own sake. RAM requirements are a frequent sign of this; if the recommended amount is, as of 2020, anything higher than 8 gigabytes, then the game is probably forcing your system to pick up the slack for poor optimization on the developer's part.

* In WebVideo/{{Hbomberguy}}'s "WOKE BRANDS" video, he pokes fun at how Corn Nuts calling itself "the world's most underrated snack" is a way to spin "people don't like it" into a positive.

* When the 1973 oil crisis forced record manufacturers to find ways of conserving the petroleum needed to make vinyl, Creator/RCARecords decided to make discs that were so soft and thin that they could be bended in half with little effort. Branding them "Dynaflex" records, RCA claimed that their light weight and flexibility would make them more durable. What they ''didn't'' mention was that [[EpicFail they were flimsy enough to warp under the weight of their own packaging]], sometimes to the point of unplayability. Audiophiles nicknamed these records "Dynawarp," and both this fiasco and other companies' cost-cutting measures played a big part in the decline in LP sales during the '70s and '80s.

* The UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn boasted in commercials having ''8 processors'', thereby somehow making it superior to the competing [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation Sony PlayStation]], which only featured 5 (your standard CPU, GPU, and SPU combo, plus a CD drive controller and DSP for disc access). In reality this made the Saturn hideously difficult to program for, not to mention expensive to produce. The [=PS1=]'s simpler architecture meant that games often looked and ran better on that system due to the greater ease of programming (also propagating the myth that the Saturn was vastly less powerful than the [=PS1=]. While this wasn't exactly true, the extra processors didn't mean the Saturn couldn't run circles around the [=PlayStation=][[note]]In fact, the Saturn originally really ''was'' less powerful than the [=PlayStation=], as it was originally designed for [=2D=] games. When Sega realized the competing [=PlayStation=] would have [=3D=] graphics, the extra processors were added to the system late in development so that the Saturn could better compete[[/note]]). This also had the added benefit of keeping manufacturing costs down, which allowed Sony to market the [=PS1=] at a lower price point and essentially lure away Sega's consumer base.

* The UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn boasted in commercials having ''8 processors'', thereby somehow making it superior to the competing [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation Sony PlayStation]], which only featured 5 (your standard CPU, GPU, and SPU combo, plus a CD drive controller and DSP for disc access). In reality this made the Saturn hideously difficult to program for, not to mention expensive to produce. The [=PS1=]'s simpler architecture meant that games often looked and ran better on that system due to the greater ease of programming (also propagating the myth that the Saturn was vastly less powerful than the [=PS1=]. While wasn't exactly true, the extra processors didn't mean the Saturn couldn't run circles around the [=PlayStation=][[note]]In fact, the Saturn originally really ''was'' less powerful than the [=PlayStation=], as it was originally designed for [=2D=] games. When Sega realized the competing [=PlayStation=] would have [=3D=] graphics, the extra processors were added to the system late in development so that the Saturn could better compete[[/note]]). This also had the added benefit of keeping manufacturing costs down, which allowed Sony to market the [=PS1=] at a lower price point and essentially lure away Sega's consumer base.

* The UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn boasted in commercials having ''8 processors'', thereby somehow making it superior to the competing [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation Sony PlayStation]], which only featured 5 (your standard CPU, GPU, and SPU combo, plus a CD drive controller and DSP for disc access). In reality this made the Saturn hideously difficult to program for, not to mention expensive to produce. The [=PS1=]'s simpler architecture meant that games often looked and ran better on that system due to the greater ease of programming (also propagating the myth that the Saturn was vastly less powerful than the [=PS1=], which wasn't exactly true). This also had the added benefit of keeping manufacturing costs down, which allowed Sony to market the [=PS1=] at a lower price point and essentially lure away Sega's consumer base.

* As a result of the 1973 oil crisis making new petroleum much harder to come by, record manufacturers tried to find various workarounds to avoid paying excessive amounts of money on raw materials. Most companies simply recycled scrap vinyl from old batches and made their records thinner and more lightweight, but Creator/RCARecords took this to a particularly strange extreme: using softer, lower-quality (though fresh) vinyl and making the records so thin that they could outright be bended in half with little effort. RCA decided to brand these "Dynaflex" records and claimed that their light weight and flexibility would make them more durable in storage and shipping. What RCA ''didn't'' mention is that [[EpicFail they were flimsy enough to warp under the weight of their own packaging]], sometimes to the point of unplayability. Audiophiles nicknamed these records "Dynawarp." An odd side effect of both the use of recycled vinyl and the Dynaflex scandal was that kids growing up in the 70s abandoned vinyl like rats fleeing a sinking ship toward the end of the decade, outside of collectors who appreciated large album artwork and [=DJs=] who depended on the ability to cue tracks. The popularity of 8-track cartridges (before their own rapid collapse due to cheap build quality), cassette tapes, and, later, compact discs, is directly linked to the fact that there was a time when you couldn't buy a vinyl record that didn’t either skip, warp, or crackle and pop right out of the sleeve. Even today vinyl acceptance is at its lowest among older Gen Xers. Despite the record industry moving back toward "virgin" heavyweight vinyl, warping, skipping, and surface noise remain common complaints among new record buyers.

* Part of the reason Betamax lost its format war to VHS was that Sony unsuccessfully pulled this trope. [[[FlameBait While there have been multiple discussions on the technical superiority of one tape over the other,]] the fact of the matter is that VHS started producing [=VCRs=] with more features than betamachines. To try to stay relevant, Sony advertised that you didn't have to pay for features you might not use with a betamachine. There were two problems with that. First: Betamachines tended to be more expensive than VHS [=VCRs=]. So, [[ExactWords while you might not pay for features you might not use, Sony didn't exactly mean you'd save any money either.]] Secondly, these features were things most users were interested in, and most Betamachine users would have to pay even more to install as addons. For example: VHS [=VCRs=] had an automatic start and stop function (allowing people to record programs during times when they weren't free to watch TV), where Betamachines could only be manually started by default (only good for recording one show while another is playing)

->''"[I]t proudly proclaims itself as a no-iron shirt. But no-iron shirts always come out of the package wrinkled up like old pieces of Reynolds Wrap, and apart from sending them off to the cleaner’s, the only option is to try to iron all of that out. But no-iron shirts resist ironing. That’s what "no-iron" means, you know: not that the shirt doesn’t need ironing, but that the shirt can’t be ironed."''

* 3DFX marketed its Voodoo line of graphics cards as not requiring users to throw out their old graphics cards. In reality, this was because the Voodoo had no 2D rendering support, and required a 2D card for that purpose, unless not being able to do any non-gaming task (such as actually ''starting'' those games) wasn't a problem for you. This was less of an issue than other examples, as most users already had suitable cards, and its 3D performance was world-class at the time. Most recognized the technique as a "piggyback" card, similar to MPEG-2 DVD and [=VideoCD=] accelerators at the time (the late '90s). As the technology caught up, single cards capable of doing both 2D and 3D competently — including 3dfx's own [=Voodoo3=] line and beyond — started appearing.

* Another device that was trying to get funded at the time of the Juicero disaster, was "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2e1x5IaO7k SMALT - The World's First Interactive Centerpiece and Smart Salt Dispenser]]". No, your eyes are not deceiving you. An internet-connected salt shaker/dispenser with companion smart phone app. Rather than play the TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket route, they instead take it in the opposite direction by bragging about all the neat features it has compared to your average container of table salt. The average container of table salt that most people can use to season their food in less time than it takes to pull out their phone, turn on the app, select the dispenser setting and amount, set the mood lighting color, and have a conversation about the device that the company behind it advertises that it wants you to have with your dinner guests. Yes, really. Now we don't have much room to talk here, but if this device is the highlight of your dinner table conversations, then you may want to re-examine the choices in this life that you've made that has brought you to holding a [[SarcasmMode riveting conversation]] about a freaking ''salt shaker''. Keep in mind that Internet-connected appliances that have no real need to connect to the Internet often exist primarily to obtain and sell customers' personal information. The real purpose of the SMALT wasn't to grind salt; it was to collect data the parent company could profit from. Same with the Juicero (there's a reason Google gave them tens of millions in venture capital); same with all other similar devices.

* There was [[OverlyLongGag an extended sequence of this running over 3 full strips]] in ''Webcomic/OwMySanity'' where protagonist Dave and EldritchAbomination [[CuteMonsterGirl Nancy]] are looking for a place to stay.

'''Dave:''' No good. See this here? Easy access to basement? Means there's a hole in the floor.\\