Episode 90: Loyalty

Transcript

I bumped into this guy, frankly, probably amongst YouTube doom-scrolling at some point, named Chris Kohler.
He's an Australian – well, I didn't know this at the time, but he's – turns out he's an Australian journalist who focuses on topics around finance and business and money and that sort of stuff.
So, you know, some of what he – I'll link to his YouTube. It's very entertaining. It's fun. A lot of what he focuses on are topics like how companies, you know, are essentially, you know, screwing over the day-to-day consumer, right?
Interesting stuff, but he presents it in a very humorous way. Along the way, it turned out he was also working on writing a book. So, I was really excited to get my hands on this.
It just came out over – somewhere around this holiday season, like the 2025 holiday season. And again, he's Australian. So, you know, I'm in the U.S.
So, there are some things that he talks about both on his channel and in the book that you have to kind of weed at.
Like, if you're approaching this from what can you learn about money in American culture, there are some differences and some things that, like, I'm not familiar with.
But overall, a lot of what he talks about applies, as far as I can tell, applies just as much to the U.S. economy and U.S. money and U.S. personal finances and stuff as it would anywhere else.
Because, you know, again, like, good follow – as far as the book itself goes, I'm not really trying to promote the book.
But if you've seen a lot of his YouTube content, I wouldn't say there were a ton of surprises in the book, right?
Like, maybe there's some extra detail in there. And obviously, it's kind of a reinforcement activity.
But a lot of the stuff that he talks about in his YouTube shorts just comes across in the book as well, just with more detail, a little more fleshed out.
So, I think I was hoping for a little more out of the book, but that's not to say that the book isn't a good read.
And it's a fast read, by the way. I mean, it's not super long.
It's like maybe 250, 270 pages, something like that.
But it – and it moves fast.
Like, you read through these chapters and they move.
Like, you don't – it does not feel like a drag.
So, if you're interested in that kind of topic of, you know, how money and business ideas and some of these things really go over time and through various companies and all that kind of stuff, like, check it out.
It's a fun read and it's a fun YouTube channel and he's a very charismatic guy and comes from a journalism background.
And, you know, I find it to be a worthwhile thing to have in my repertoire.
I bring all that up because I've been thinking – well, not just recently, but throughout the course of many years, I suppose – about the topic of loyalty.
Now, there's a lot of nuance to this that no matter what I say here on a podcast episode, I will not be able to communicate certain nuances.
I will miss certain parts of this topic.
So, I'm just going to talk about pieces of this and, you know, just take that not as a complete picture of everything, but just as some of the things that I suppose float around in my head when this topic kind of comes to mind.
It's related because in his book in particular, one of the repeated pieces of advice that he gives is that if you want – if you are – I guess I should back up.
A lot of what he talks about in the book is how can you have better understanding of how large companies are working day in and day out to separate you from your hard-earned money.
Like, that's sort of almost a summary of what this whole thing is about.
So, and a lot of the repeated advice – because he's trying to give some advice throughout the book of like not just here's how they're doing it, but also what can you do to try to not completely avoid this?
Because let's be honest, as much as we'd all love to believe that if we all wanted to cut ties from giant corporations, we could, we probably can't.
So, how do you mitigate it a little bit?
And one of the pieces of advice that repeatedly comes up is you shouldn't have loyalty to brands.
The idea being that as soon as you become loyal to a brand, then they've got you and they will get you over time.
Whether you realize it or not, prices will increase, quality will go down, a whole number of things in that realm.
Businesses often have all of their incentives laid out for new customers, largely ignoring existing ones until that existing one threatens to leave, right?
So, that's a repeated theme in here.
And so, the idea is you really shouldn't have loyalty to a brand.
That every time you go to buy a thing or buy a service or whatever, you should be shopping around.
If you are concerned about the amount of money that is leaving your bank account on a monthly basis and you're not sure where it's all going,
one of the smartest things you can do is when you go to buy a thing, shop around.
And this ranges from large purchases to small ones.
Now, you know, I have had certain brand loyalties over the course of my life for sure.
I'm a Ford guy.
I like Fords.
But I don't really know, I can't really articulate why I like Fords.
I don't even really know where that came from.
Like my parents, like I've heard stories of people whose parents worked for Ford.
My parents did not work for Ford.
There are people who came up in an era where American cars really were largely superior to foreign cars.
I did not come up in that era.
In fact, all evidence points to the contrary.
I think I backed into it because I have a real fondness for the Ford Bronco, specifically the Bronco.
And so I sort of backed into this idea that I also like Ford.
And when I sit and think about it, I can't really articulate why I give a crap about Ford.
But I do.
And so anytime over the last many years that I've looked for a car or whatever, I tend to start with Fords.
But again, it's not for any particularly good reason.
And frankly, the quality and build quality of Fords has only gone down over time.
I can say that about a lot of cars, but it's really a separate topic.
Apple.
I have great brand loyalty toward Apple, as do many, quote unquote, Apple fanboys.
I would say at least this one is a little more rational.
Well, when it comes to Apple, they do provide, particularly when it comes to, I'd say particularly when it comes to their computers and their phones as well.
But to me, where it really hits home is like laptops, desktops, that kind of stuff, like a computer computer.
They provide a product soup to nuts, which you cannot really get anywhere else, not to get too technical about it.
But the technical capabilities of these machines, plus the product polish that they offer on top of that is really you can't find it anywhere else.
Like, if you want to take technical capabilities, I suppose you could go and use some kind of Linux machine.
And if you want the product polish, I suppose you could buy some kind of high-end Windows thing and it wouldn't be a huge difference.
But then you have to use Windows.
And Windows is horrible.
But to put those things together, that, like, really powerful, strong back-end, plus a polished front-end, I know it's, you know, I'm speaking in the wrong terminology here.
But really, you only get that from Apple.
And you pay a premium for it.
But I've accepted that.
But at least I have a reason that I feel loyal there.
And, you know, and they get you, though, right?
They get you because if you buy in on one of their product lines, it's really easy to start buying in on the rest of them.
And that's what I did over time, right?
Like, I think I started with an iPad that I got one Christmas long time ago.
And then it went from an iPad to an iPhone to computers and the TV and everything else under the sun, right?
And now every month I have a bill from Apple for services.
And they're not even very good services.
It's just that they kind of inherently work with the other stuff that I have.
Like, they get you eventually, right?
So I agree with the advice overall of you shouldn't be loyal to brands.
The main reason that I'm not, that I agree with this, though, is because they wouldn't be loyal to you in return.
Not really.
Like, some of these companies, you might threaten to leave and they'll throw you some deals or whatever.
But at the end of the day, if their bottom line is going to be better off without you, they will drop you in a heartbeat.
Whatever it is that you like about their products and services will be gone or have prices hiked so fast it'll make your head spin.
Again, they do not care about you because they are not people.
They are a company with a bottom line.
And I think we anthropomorphize and humanize companies when we shouldn't.
When, in fact, you know, it is a customer and company relationship.
And one where, in theory, they should need you more than you need them.
But in practice, they have convinced us otherwise.
And so, hidden in here is this idea of when does loyalty shift to becoming a relationship that you are just being taken advantage of.
And there's this other, so I've been talking a bunch about companies, but that's not really where my head is at on this or where I want to go with this.
I was kind of using it as a framing device because there is also loyalty with and to people.
And I think this is, of course, the more important form of loyalty, but one that over the course of time, I think, it is just as difficult to figure out when you – that's not true.
It's more difficult to figure out when you should and should not be loyal to people.
Because if the answer on the company side is you should never be loyal, which I would – you know, I never – I don't like taking hardline stances because, you know, even if the 99% case is that you should never be loyal, there might be 1% that you should.
But whatever.
Let's just say for the sake of argument, you should never be loyal to companies.
Because probably if you – if I had – you know, if I had to pick a blanket rule, that's probably the way that that rule should go.
But people are different.
Some people you should be loyal to and with.
And some people you expect loyalty from.
And other people, given loyalty, will take advantage of that over time.
And maybe at some point they did deserve and earn loyalty and maybe they lost that over time or maybe they never should have to begin with.
But it's a much more difficult problem or difficult set of circumstances with so much nuance to figure out.
One of the things that always comes up with this for me, and this is on a lot of topics, you know, it can be hard throughout the course of your life to figure out when you should switch from one point of view to another or when a switch has been flipped on you.
And what I mean by this is, like, if you're anything like me, you grew up and you watched a bunch of TV and sitcoms.
And in those TV and sitcoms, it was always very clear when something has shifted.
For example, on a topic like loyalty, right, you might have a show where, you know, there's a new character that's introduced and some of the characters in the show aren't sure if they should be trusted.
And there's usually one character in the show that is very quick to trust them.
And then, you know, somewhere in the middle of the show and they're warning them and warning them.
And then somewhere in the middle of the show, the new character does something to disobey the trust of those who are trusting him or her.
And then it's like a clear road sign, right?
Like there's a clear landmark road sign where it's like, you see, this was no good, right?
And the thing is, real life isn't like that.
Real life is more subtle.
There's no road signs.
There's no scene.
It's just a continuous set of experiences that over time can pile up in one direction or another.
And it's almost like boiling a frog in water, right?
The sitcom version of that is throwing the frog in a giant pot of hot water.
And it'll jump out and it's very clear what's going on.
Whereas real life is much more of a slow burn where it's the people who deserve your loyalty that builds over time.
And the people who really don't, you might have given them some loyalty and then it almost becomes like a sunk cost fallacy thing where it's like you think about all the experiences you've had with them and you don't want to lose those pieces.
But in reality, you shouldn't be as trusting in this scenario as you are being.
But you don't realize it right away.
I've just been thinking a lot about that.
I mean, I've always kind of thought about this, but I don't know, for whatever reason, it's been present on my mind.
But then the question, of course, is what do you do?
What do you do, A, to evaluate whether or not your loyalty is deserved?
Because loyalty can be a dangerous thing when abused.
And B, let's say you make the determination of, oh, you know, I really have been kind of taken advantage of.
What do you do from there, right?
Do you just hard stop ghost back out?
And then how many of those can you endure before you're just becoming an isolationist, right?
I was curious about what the research said on this, which is something I never really looked into before.
But I thought I'd share just what one thing that was sort of a trend or kind of a commonality across the things that I saw.
And in a lot of ways, it's not all that different from the advice on the corporate side or on the company side.
At the end of the day, the question seems to be all about reciprocation.
It's if you are loyal to someone or something, and not just are they saying that they are loyal in return, but are they doing things that would show that?
Is there reciprocation?
If you took the actions of a person in a vacuum without knowledge of who they were, without your personal connection, would those actions be described as loyal actions or not?
And just like in the case of companies, where in general, they will never be loyal to you in return.
That's a question that in interpersonal relationships, especially if you're finding yourself repeatedly damaged, you should be asking that.
Is there reciprocation here?
From a personal growth standpoint, I think it's also a really worthwhile thing to ask about yourself, is that are your actions to the people that you are trying to be loyal with and to, do your actions honestly, when you really sit down and think about it, can you honestly say that the actions that you are exhibiting are those of loyalty as well?
So, so I think that's, you know, if you have to boil this down to one core concept, it's reciprocation.
If you are going to give loyalty, you should be giving it to those who naturally reciprocate.
And if you are going to request or require loyalty from others, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself to make sure that the things you are doing would be defined as loyal as well.
Thank you.