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THWEI. TNNZEET. BUXKR. Just some of the reliable\h
Amazon brands that make it possible to get pants\h\h

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delivered to you with the urgency of a new kidney.\h
But did it ever occur to you that when browsing\h\h

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Amazon, you don’t actually recognize, like, 90%\h
of the brands on there anymore? I mean, sure,\h\h

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they’ve got the big names if you look for them,\h
but why are most results these companies that\h\h

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you’ve never heard of? What is BUXKR? Who runs\h
BUXKR? Do they sit at a desk in a big building\h\h

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with the word BUXKR on it? Are kids these days\h
getting bullied for not having the latest BUXKR\h\h

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merch? Are you just out of touch, or is there\h
something more here? Well, if you’re watching\h\h

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this channel you probably are out of touch, but\h
there is also something more here. These brands\h\h

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don’t really exist outside of Amazon—if you look\h
them up, you’re not going to find storefronts,\h\h

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or websites, or big buildings with their names on\h
them. These brands—or pseudo-brands—are actually\h\h

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part of a very tricky e-commerce scheme that takes\h
advantage of the way Amazon functions these days,\h\h

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and they’re not just gunking up your online\h
shopping feed: they’ve also nearly destroyed\h\h

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the US Patent and Trademark Office in the process.
So, how did Amazon get so overrun with PVENDORs,\h\h

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YUIOPs, and JOYOLDELFs in the first place? Well,\h
that’s kind of a long story. When Amazon first\h\h

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started, the way it distributed products\h
was pretty simple. You’d order a book on\h\h

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Amazon—which was the only type of thing you could\h
order on Amazon back then—and then Amazon would\h\h

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turn around and buy that book directly from a\h
larger book distributor or wholesaler and send\h\h

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it to you. One of the few reasons that this was\h
remotely sustainable was that these wholesalers\h\h

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kept prices down by requiring Amazon to buy in\h
bulk, so Jeff Bezos would scam them by buying\h\h

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one copy of the book he needed and then he’d\h
fill out the rest of the order with a whole\h\h

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bunch of copies of an unnamed obscure book about\h
lichen that none of them ever had in stock, all\h\h

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of which would then immediately get refunded. But\h
Jeff aspired to greater things than scamming book\h\h

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wholesalers—he wanted to be the buffest, baldest,\h
richest man the world had ever seen, so in 1998,\h\h

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Amazon started selling other stuff. And sure\h
enough, they were pretty good at that too,\h\h

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so a few years later, Jeff had the wise idea\h
of letting other people sell stuff on Amazon\h\h

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using Amazon’s infrastructure: this is where\h
things get complicated. Some items on Amazon\h\h

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work the old-fashioned way: they’re owned\h
by Amazon, stored in Amazon warehouses,\h\h

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and shipped by Amazon. Other items are almost\h
completely disconnected from Amazon’s supply\h\h

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chain: they’re owned by other companies, stored\h
off-site, and shipped by someone else—you just\h\h

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purchase them through Amazon’s website, but that’s\h
about it. And then some items are in between:\h\h

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they might be owned by other companies, but\h
stored or shipped by Amazon. And this system\h\h

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has worked pretty well, because it means that\h
Amazon doesn’t actually have to buy and house all\h\h

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40,000 different funny hats that come up when you\h
search “funny hat” on their website. But it also\h\h

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comes with certain risks, because accurately\h
vetting 350 million different products is about as\h\h

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hard as accurately vetting 350 million different\h
products sounds. Amazon has frequently gotten in\h\h

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trouble for selling hair dryers that kill you if\h
exposed to water, children’s pajamas that have the\h\h

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unfortunate tendency to catch on fire, and carbon\h
monoxide detectors that are purely decorative.\h

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So, in 2015, Amazon came up with a plan to stop\h
accidentally lighting children on fire: Amazon\h\h

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Brand Registry. The idea was that if you wanted\h
to be a third-party seller on Amazon and have\h\h

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your products actually get pushed in the search\h
engine, you had to enroll in this new system,\h\h

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but enrolling in this new system required having a\h
registered trademark on a brand name. What Amazon\h\h

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hoped would happen is that the US Patent and\h
Trademark Office would be able to sift out the\h\h

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extra-flammable pajamas before they actually hit\h
the market. What actually happened is that the US\h\h

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Patent and Trademark Office was almost destroyed.
So, it turns out, it’s not actually that hard to\h\h

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trademark a brand name as long as that\h
brand name totally sucks. If you’re\h\h

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trying to trademark a name that’s coherent and\h
uses real English words, like, I don’t know,\h\h

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Skateboard Cream—don’t try to steal that by\h
the way, it’s my idea—the process will take\h\h

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a fairly long time because the USPTO has a lot of\h
work to do in order to prove its distinctiveness.\h\h

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But if you file to trademark a meaningless\h
string of letters, like RLENOIUML or VOX,\h\h

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chances are, there won’t be any competition and\h
it’ll go right through. So, all of a sudden, the\h\h

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most efficient way to get your product listed on\h
Amazon—assuming you’re not already a recognizable\h\h

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company—is to file, in the United States, for the\h
worst trademark you can think of. And sure enough,\h\h

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the US Patent and Trademark Office wasn’t too\h
happy about this, because they were now knee-deep\h\h

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in applications that were designed to be as lazy\h
as possible. They had to bring it to congress,\h\h

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it was a whole thing, and seemingly it’s\h
still a really big problem, but, uh… whatever.\h

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A much more interesting question remains: how\h
do these products actually compete when their\h\h

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brands are so intentionally bad? Well, the answer,\h
apparently, is that you don’t care. For the most\h\h

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part, these third-party sellers target product\h
categories with very little brand loyalty; stuff\h\h

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that you kind of just need quickly and cheaply:\h
HDMI cables, measuring cups, dog wigs, things\h\h

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like that. Obviously, you don’t want to buy a\h
HMBGSFD pacemaker, but a HMBGSFD ice cream scoop?\h\h

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Why not. And that’s not to mention the fact that\h
most of these brands have pretty much nothing to\h\h

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lose, so they can just buy reviews and clickfarm\h
until they get banned and have to undergo the\h\h

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arduous process of thinking up another string of\h
meaningless letters to trademark. The lesson is:\h\h

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the path to riches is laziness, at least if\h
you’re trying to sell ice cream scoops on Amazon.\h

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In an age where the internet is absolutely overrun\h
with garbage products, let me tell you about a\h\h

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product that I know for certain is not-so-garbage:\h
Nebula. Now I might be a little biased here—I\h\h

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helped start Nebula four years ago with some of\h
my creator friends, but the concept was simple:\h\h

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creators know how to make good content on a\h
budget. Therefore, it tracks that if you give them\h\h

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a little more budget, they can make great content.\h
We did exactly that, and now have a huge catalog\h\h

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of absolutely incredible Nebula Originals. For\h
example: you know Real Life Lore? He has a series\h\h

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called Modern Conflicts which is just as good as\h
his videos on YouTube. LegalEagle? He made a class\h\h

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teaching you how to sue people. PhilosophyTube?\h
She filmed her off-West End play called the\h\h

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Prince. Real Engineering? He made a phenomenal\h
series called the Logistics of D-Day. Mustard,\h\h

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Neo, CityBeautiful, Polymatter, TierZoo—I couldn’t\h
possibly name all the creators that have made\h\h

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Nebula Originals, but it’s a lot, and plenty\h
that the average HAI viewer watches and enjoys:\h\h

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we actually know that for sure based on our\h
audience crossover analytics. Oh, and we’ve made\h\h

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Originals too of course, but on top of Originals,\h
the creators all upload their content early and\h\h

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ad-free on the platform, meaning it’s all in all\h
just a better viewing experience for you. Over\h\h

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650,000 people are subscribed to Nebula already,\h
and we know they find it worthwhile because\h\h

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we have one of the lowest subscriber churn and\h
highest monthly active user counts in streaming:\h\h

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the analytics prove that people are signing\h
up and actually using and enjoying Nebula. And\h\h

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to top it all off, Nebula is creator-founded\h
and creator-owned: we at Half as Interesting\h\h

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actually get a cut of your subscription fee for\h
as long as you stay subscribed, as long as you\h\h

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sign up at Nebula.tv/HAI. Also by using that link\h
you’ll get 40% off an annual plan, so it’s worth\h\h

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it for both of us—head to Nebula.tv/HAI,\h
and thanks in advance for your support.