We like pretty
I grew up in a country, and in a time, where products were mostly designed for utility, and how they looked was secondary. In 1980s Bombay, we used to fetish-ize images of cars and gadgets that we glimpsed on the pages of foreign magazines. Even in the 1990s and early 2000s companies like Nokia or Dell would produce a utilitarian model for the mass and a “posh” model for those who would pay more. In the late 1990s, when I started traveling, I often heard from people that most customers did not care for the design but the price.
The other day I was in Phnom Penh, near Soriya Mall and I spotted a shop selling a slick plastic cases — not for phones — but for household cooking gas cylinders!!.