Was the popularity of DEs all about low-cost replaceable blades?
I don’t know, and I wonder about it a lot. The GEM system seems technically better, and IMHO makes for better mass-produced razors than the Gillette format. Might it just be network effects?
My suspicion is that it was marketing. I think the band steel used for DE blades was a boon for blade production. The band steel seems to be a perfect fit for high volume, multi-stage manufacture. Gillette heavily promoted replaceable blades, and as I recall, the company’s business model was to make its profits through high-volume/low margin sales of blades.
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I don’t know, and I wonder about it a lot. The GEM system seems technically better, and IMHO makes for better mass-produced razors than the Gillette format. Might it just be network effects?
My suspicion is that it was marketing. I think the band steel used for DE blades was a boon for blade production. The band steel seems to be a perfect fit for high volume, multi-stage manufacture. Gillette heavily promoted replaceable blades, and as I recall, the company’s business model was to make its profits through high-volume/low margin sales of blades.
Marketing sounds plausible. The Doubledge Micromatic blades would have had the exact same arguments in their favour, yet they didn’t stick around.
Maybe it’s one of those mac vs windows stories. Two roughly equivalent systems and one of them gets big first.