Tag Archives: Calepino

After I wrote the previous post on The Moleskine IPO, I saw a hypothetical parallel to the company’s annoying unwillingness to reveal the weight of the paper in their “legendary” pocket notebooks. When the U.S. government mandated disclosure of miles-per-gallon (MPG) ratings for automobiles, marketers immediately followed the lead of the software industry and turned this “bug” into a “feature” — the added workload of satisfying the new regulations was offset by an opportunity to tout the models with the best mileage. Of course, some model ends up at the bottom of that list, and every car buyer can see it. Imagine instead that these disclosures were voluntary, with most manufacturers participating, but that Übermobile demurred because it knew that its best-selling Ω Series would be the bottom-dweller. In short order, blogs and forums on luxury car websites would have anecdotes galore about poor gas mileage. But the official corporate posture would be silence, not to say disdain. Who cares about a few complainers, if affluent or aspiring drivers continue to buy?