Published on December 26th, 2024 | by Mahbub Hasan

Excuse me! What’s the point of Ridge Lite wallet?

All press is good press. Well, it certainly wasn’t the case for Logan Paul. In his case, he was destroyed by bad press. But for consumer goods like the shitty drinks you see on many influencer videos, even bad press can indeed boost business. Today my utter frustration is in a “bad press” format in Techno FAQ. Only some of you may end up reading it, but here is my rant anyway.

Stupid products of YouTube

I will talk about Ridge Wallet today and a few other things. The Ridge wallet is supposedly a wallet. What kind you may ask! Good question. It’s not a wallet, but the company likes to call it a wallet. It’s a fancy card holder made of machined aluminum. It can’t hold more than a few bank notes rolled up awkwardly. But if you live in a world where cash is not king, maybe this is a wallet.

I am a non-cash digital payment guy who will gladly walk a mile so I can avoid paying cash. I had a wallet where you could nicely put all the cards and you had two spots for putting cash if you fold them once. Not a lot of money it could hold, but that’s OK. So why am I babbling about the Ridge wallet? Take a look yourself:

It’s a cardholder with a clip that holds max two folded notes awkwardly.

They didn’t stop here

Every time I see this shit, I wanna pull out my hair. Why is it a thing? It’s already bad to me that they branded a cardholder as a modern wallet, but guess what? They went ahead and made this:

Yeah, what the heck? What’s the point of this? That’s not a wallet, that’s a clip. It’s the same thing as putting a band strap around your cards and calling it a wallet. Yet they are promoting it. And how much they are selling it for? CAD 90 or USD ~66! What?

The stupidity doesn’t stop here

You know the time when YouTubers started promoting the RAID Shadow Legend game? The reason they exclusively chose YouTube is because it was shitty to be shown anywhere else. YouTube promotions have as much quality as those pesky ads in shitty mobile games. These do not work for all kinds of viewers, only specific kinds. The house dwelling, none working idling type of viewers. That includes young people. Games, drinks, and similar useless stuff sell more in YouTube promotions. So they are almost exclusively promoted in this format. But let me tell you, you don’t need most of this stuff anyway.

You don’t need this stuff

You don’t need most of the stuff that YouTubers promote. Need a thin solution for your cashless pocket? There are plenty of wallets that are crazy thin, made of RFID-blocking materials, and allow you to store cash when you need it.

These will do just fine. They are thin when you need them to be, and efficient when you need more space. Unlike the fixed size of the Ridge wallet, which restricts you with its non-flexible design. There is no point in buying a cardholder sold as a wallet.

No need for stupid sugary drinks

While talking about things you don’t need, I should include a few more things to the list. I have seen a stupid amount of sugary drinks promoted with the label “Electrolyte”. What is “Electrolyte”? Electrolytes are a bunch of chemicals our body requires to keep the balance between the fluids inside and outside our cell, manage chemical reactions in our body, and more. Some of the electrolytes are responsible for communication of our nervous system, thus when we’re low on them, we feel weak.

But we feel weakness for many other reasons, not only for electrolyte imbalance. And surely if you’re not running jumping or swimming, but instead sitting idly in front of a computer, you don’t need electrolytes. You don’t need Gfuel. The fact that it’s being promoted towards children and gamers, is sickening to me. I am a gamer myself, and when I game, I don’t run or jump, unless it’s inside CS2.

I don’t lose any electrolytes, nor does anyone gaming and sitting idle. You don’t need electrolytes when you’re sitting idle. If the excuse is “I’m sweating”, then please turn on the fan or AC. Bad things happen when the body has too little electrolyte, but bad things can also happen if you’re drinking too much electrolyte while losing none. Some of the symptoms are

Confusion and irritability.
Irregular heart rate (arrhythmia).
Breathing difficulties.
Fatigue.
Headaches.
Muscle cramps or weakness.
Diarrhea or constipation.
Nausea and vomiting.

So maybe it’s not good to drink these BS sugary products promoted by greedy YouTubers towards children and young people.

More things you don’t need

You need a VPN maybe, but not because YouTubers said so. Most of the things said in those promotions are wrong. Those fearsome hackers stealing info from public wifi can only happen in unencrypted WIFI networks, and if you’re still using insecure HTTP protocol. Those methods are old. While DNS hijacking is a real thing, the real reason you should use a VPN is to ensure privacy.

Adding a privacy layer is the main reason why one should use a VPN because a VPN all by itself can’t ensure total security or anonymity. You need to make sure of a lot of things besides using a VPN. That said, most of the VPNs promoted by YouTubers cannot provide total privacy because most of the different services are usually owned by two or three companies and they are all shady.

Even if there is a no-log policy, it does not mean the company won’t supply your system IP and VPN usage info to the government. If you’re a journalist, whistleblower, or protestor, do remember that these companies are notorious for working with authorities worldwide.

Conclusion

Even though it’s a shame that YouTubers keep promoting BS products, they always get away with it with minimum backlash unless there is a scam. So we have to be aware of these things. We have to be aware of the fact that promotions are just ads that want customers. And they’re usually selling a problem, instead of a solution.

Tags: business, criticism, marketing, ridge wallet, slim wallet, technology, wallet

About the Author

Mahbub Hasan is a creative professional from Bangladesh. In Technofaq, Mahbub writes articles about design, privacy, technology and life surrounding them.