A lot of that infomercial gear is originally invented as a disability aid, and has to go for this fringe market to get manufactured if a big medical equipment supplier doesn’t license it. You either make a tool that can do something big like helping a maimed soldier fight again, or your disability aid gets a silly-seeming commercial that mocks the difficulties faced by the people that the gadget’s creator was attempting to help.
Lemmy always in with the super grim takes. Jeez guys can’t I just open Lemmy for a sec and look at a meme without getting terribly depressed? Mostly sarcasm but also on the real
Along those lines, I have a specialty undergarment I wear that is no longer manufactured because they couldn’t figure out a way to infomercial it outside of its intended use. A solitary person made them for thirty years and wanted to retire, and nobody wanted to just make them for people with disabilities. Now they’re gone. I bought a lifetime supply (they last about five years of heavy use, I bought ten. If I survive longer than fifty years, oopsy poopsy) before he shut down. We’ve found some decent adaptive gear through those commercials tho
Unfun fact:
A lot of that infomercial gear is originally invented as a disability aid, and has to go for this fringe market to get manufactured if a big medical equipment supplier doesn’t license it. You either make a tool that can do something big like helping a maimed soldier fight again, or your disability aid gets a silly-seeming commercial that mocks the difficulties faced by the people that the gadget’s creator was attempting to help.
Lemmy always in with the super grim takes. Jeez guys can’t I just open Lemmy for a sec and look at a meme without getting terribly depressed? Mostly sarcasm but also on the real
Along those lines, I have a specialty undergarment I wear that is no longer manufactured because they couldn’t figure out a way to infomercial it outside of its intended use. A solitary person made them for thirty years and wanted to retire, and nobody wanted to just make them for people with disabilities. Now they’re gone. I bought a lifetime supply (they last about five years of heavy use, I bought ten. If I survive longer than fifty years, oopsy poopsy) before he shut down. We’ve found some decent adaptive gear through those commercials tho