The Renegade Glossary

Advertising

1. The publicly displayed aspect of marketing efforts.
2. Unsolicited pitches for products, services and goods, delivered by various media.

Advertising is frequently mistaken for the whole of marketing and subjected to much attention and backlash. Absorbing this misdirected opposition is part of its purpose and “anti-advertising” campaigns are largely ineffectual as a result.

Anti-Consumerism

1. Opposition to consumerism as an active force in socioeconomic systems.
2. The idea that fostering consumption to maintain profits is unethical.

The key word there is “fostering”—creating and encouraging desire or interest in something for self-serving ends and not based on inherent value, quality or need.

Consumerism

1. An economic system that:
   1. depends on maximized sales of consumer goods for continued viability, and defines economic health as ever-rising sales of those goods;
   2. is based on the concept that buying consumer goods is the central engine of an economy;
   3. assumes that the purpose of a population is to exchange wealth for consumer goods.
2. The focus of life on acquiring goods and maximizing the ability to acquire them.
3. The idea that the purpose of life is to use one’s economic resources to acquire goods, and that it is incumbent on all to make maximum use of those resources to further this pursuit.

DBI Factor

Short for “Don't Buy It.” The DBI Factor scales a purchase amount into a proportional amount of your potential lifetime wealth.

For example, $100 invested at age 30 (instead of spent) represents $450 or more at age 60. Viewing prospective purchases by this factored cost can put them in perspective against finite lifetime wealth.

Free Day

The Renegade interpretation of “retirement,” referring to the day of your life you no longer need to work to produce income. It is intended to be a self-selected day driven only by personal choice and the acquisition of enough personal wealth to live out an expected lifetime without additional direct income.

Junk-Lock

1. (noun) A product that requires special-purpose replaceables, refills or supplies in order to continue functioning, usually with those replacements available only from the original manufacturer. The product is junk that locks the buying into buying more junk, and usually has comparable options that either do not require replacement elements or use competitively-sold commodity versions. The signature junk-lock product is men's “shaving systems,” which are perpetually revised to maintain a patented lock on replacement blades and cartridges. A more common term is “the razor-and-blades model,” but the practice has been extended so far into other product areas that a new and more concise term is needed.
2. (verb) To create or modify a consumer product so that it requires proprietary replacement elements, especially with an eye toward making more profit from sales of the replacements than of the original item or set.

Marketing

The practice of fostering desire for acquisition of a product, service or good.

Advertising is only one component of most marketing efforts and often one of the least important.

RCU Factor

Short for “Real Cost per Use.” The RCU Factor divides a purchase amount by the number of times the item is likely to be used, producing a cost per use figure.

For example, a kitchen appliance purchased for $240 and used once a month for two years before failure or discarding costs $10 per use. Viewing prospective purchases in terms of cost per use can put the value of the acquisition in perspective. Making a realistic assessment of the number of times the item will be used is essential and often overestimated.

Total Cost

A comprehensive view of a purchase's actual cost, adding all taxes, fees and other obscured costs to the sticker or shelf price. Consumers tend to be conditioned out of including these often-significant amounts in judging price and value.