Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Wow. A company I never heard of owns everything I ever have.

Skimming some compsec headlines offered by Troy Hunt and ... whoa! It's almost not hyperbolic to say that a company (that apparently suffered a serious breach, recently) that I never heard of owns everything I ever have.

So much for brand loyalty, in other words:

Luxottica is the world’s largest eyewear company, glasses, and prescription frames maker, and the owner of popular brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley, Chanel, Prada, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Michael Kors, and many other. The company also operates Eyemed, a vision insurance company in the US.

Double-checking with Wikipedia:

Luxottica Group S.p.A. is an Italian eyewear conglomerate and the world's largest company in the eyewear industry.[3][4] It is based in Milan, Italy.[5] Its best known brands are Costa, Ray-Ban, Persol, Oliver Peoples and Oakley.

Luxottica is a vertically integrated company which has been described as a monopoly. It designs, manufactures, distributes, and retails its eyewear brands through companies that it owns such as LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Apex by Sunglass Hut, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, and Glasses.com. It also owns EyeMed, one of the largest vision health insurance providers. Luxottica's market power has allowed it to charge price markups of 1000%.

Luxottica also makes sunglasses and prescription frames for designer brands such as Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani, Burberry, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Michael Kors, Coach, Miu Miu and Tory Burch.[6][7][8][5]

 
I am fortunate enough not to have to rely on sunglasses to get through the day. I have a pair of no-namers in my car, just in case. If memory serves, I bought them on a whim, from a stand on Venice Beach, because they reminded me of the shades worn by one of the stars in a favorite movie that I had just seen. [T2 image here] [or link] So, I'm not exactly plugged.

However, knowing humans as I do, I can't help but wonder if people get as tribalistic about the logo on their sunglasses as they do, about, say, Adidas vs Nike, or Ram vs F-150, or Makita vs DeWalt. Or which airline is the worst.



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