---
title: "Zhao Bo of New Distribution: Why Is the More Useless, the More Valuable?"
description: "Usefulness is a way of thinking. I've noticed that people born in the 1980s and earlier tend to evaluate products by their practical utility, a mindset rooted in growing up in material scarcity. However, today's younger consumers, who have never experienced such scarcity, are willing to pay a premium for 'useless' items that provide emotional or symbolic value. This shift from functional to meaningful value marks the beginning of a new era in consumption."
author: "赵波"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-10-30"
categories: "Dealer Operations"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kJBStmYTTnL58QPmN05xCg"
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attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zhao-bo-of-new-distribution-why-is-the-more-useless-the-more-valuable-fc7be785/"
citation: "赵波. “Zhao Bo of New Distribution: Why Is the More Useless, the More Valuable?.” New Distribution, 2025-10-30. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zhao-bo-of-new-distribution-why-is-the-more-useless-the-more-valuable-fc7be785/"
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---

# Zhao Bo of New Distribution: Why Is the More Useless, the More Valuable?

> Usefulness is a way of thinking. I've noticed that people born in the 1980s and earlier tend to evaluate products by their practical utility, a mindset rooted in growing up in material scarcity. However, today's younger consumers, who have never experienced such scarcity, are willing to pay a premium for 'useless' items that provide emotional or symbolic value. This shift from functional to meaningful value marks the beginning of a new era in consumption.

Usefulness is a way of thinking.
I've noticed that people born in the 1980s and earlier have a habit in their way of thinking: when they see a product, their first reaction is to ask what it's useful for.
This 'usefulness' refers to what problems it can solve in our lives, such as functional, material, or other aspects, mostly with physical or functional attributes, and it must be clear that it can solve a specific problem for me.
This way of evaluating value based on whether something is 'useful' is rarely recognized as a common perception among a generation that grew up in an environment of relative material scarcity.
This childhood scarcity makes people's way of thinking instinctively survival-based, forcing them to invest limited energy, funds, and resources into aspects that meet physiological or basic survival needs.
What are the benefits of this way of thinking? Such people are highly efficient, able to achieve their goals and objectives at the lowest cost with minimal energy and resource consumption.
But times have changed, and many people cannot understand the consumption views of the consumer groups born after 2000 and 2010. They play in 'gugu' stores, buy Pop Mart figures, and in cities, they don't get married but keep pets.
Then people born before the 1980s find it strange: it's not edible, has no function, so what use can it be?
This question actually hides a huge amount of information. It is precisely this 'uselessness' that may be the answer to today's and future consumption.
'Uselessness' actually conceals a consumption code. Let's start with 'uselessness' itself; it is not based on some added value, but on other pursuits, such as spiritual, emotional, or higher premium. Users are willing to pay a higher premium for this 'uselessness', and even willing to buy more quantities.
Let's use 'usefulness' as an analogy: if you have an electric iron at home, would you buy a second or third one? Probably not, right?
You might say, I would buy it because it's more beautiful, more powerful, or upgraded!
You're right, but you definitely wouldn't buy a second one of the same model.
But I believe you would definitely buy many of the same Labubu figures, and even spend a lot of money to collect a whole series.
This raises a question worth thinking about: why are people willing to pay so much for dolls with no functional value, and even repeat and repeatedly purchase them?
The purpose of this analogy is to tell everyone that the problem we face today is that companies have overly focused on the 'useful' part while neglecting the 'useless' part.
But the value contained in this 'uselessness' is the main reason for this generation of consumers to buy.
This generation of teenagers has never experienced hunger or scarcity. They have no sense of material scarcity in their hearts, and the meaning of consumption comes more from higher-level pursuits.
They value intangible things more, such as the existence of emotional value and the meaning carried by the 'useless' level. This is the value of 'uselessness' we see at the marketing level.
Emptiness and White Space
Chinese philosophy has a concept called 'emptiness' (kong). What is emptiness? Emptiness does not mean nothing at all, but like the emptiness of a room or the emptiness of a bowl, because it is empty, it can hold more things, can hold all things. If it is just an object, it can only achieve a single function.
In his book 'Designing Design', Kenya Hara deeply elaborated the philosophy of 'emptiness' in the artistic conception of design. His poster design for MUJI uses a lot of white space to evoke more imagination and value.
This philosophy of 'nothingness' or 'emptiness' is essentially what I mean by 'uselessness', which is also about this philosophy of 'emptiness'.
**Emptiness is not nothing, but a container of infinite possibilities.** A room is empty to accommodate life; a bowl is hollow to hold all things.
In this philosophy of emptiness, it is particularly interesting that we can no longer directly tell consumers 'what kind of object I am', but rather let consumers feel 'what meaning or value I represent'.
Essentially, we need to turn objects or products from 'being' to 'nothingness'.
We no longer emphasize 'who I am', but rather how consumers understand 'who they are', or let them define the meaning of consumption itself.
We don't need to define the product ourselves, but let users define the product and the value of their purchase.
The best design is design with white space; it doesn't fill all your imagination, but invites you to participate and co-create meaning. So, being able to leave white space for a product is a capability.
What we need to do is to leave white space for the product, turning the product into a container for consumer meaning.
Let consumers gain identity recognition and meaning construction through purchase.
Simply put: 'I' is not a static 'existence', but an unfolding 'story'.
We need to build a community of meaning through narrative. And this kind of touching is the resonance between our product's narrative and the meaning of its existence.
If there is an easier way to persuade someone, or it is white space, then it is actually easier to move someone.
Look at the best movies in the world; many emotions are presented through silence.
Uselessness is emptiness and not emptiness; uselessness refers to the function of the product. Today, when making products, we need to pay more attention to the useless parts, or the parts that consumers need at the inner level. This uselessness is beauty, fun, meaning, topic, comfort, narrative, values, and everything that can move users, rather than persuading users.
Persuasion vs. Moving
If you can understand what I said earlier, you will find that the higher-level transaction logic is never persuasion, but 'moving'.
We find that today almost all brands and retail are influenced by e-commerce, falling into a vicious cycle, all using persuasion to explain product value.
In e-commerce live streaming rooms, young women shout themselves hoarse about the product's efficacy, ingredients, capacity, and price, but they never mention what the product means to consumers.
Consumers will not pay extra premium for functions and parameters; the more you try to persuade, the more they will calculate rationally. This highlights the preciousness of Dong Yuhui. Dong Yuhui's uniqueness lies in turning every consumer into an 'experiencer' and 'exister' full of sensibility, seeking meaning, and longing for resonance.
Image source: Xiaohongshu
After all, life is not only about the immediate trivialities, but also about poetry and the distant places.
Zhuangzi said: 'Everyone knows the use of the useful, but no one knows the use of the useless.'
**Kant said:** 'True beauty is that which seems to be made for you, yet does not compel you to use it for anything.'
The era of functional value has ended; the era of meaning value has just begun.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 赵波
- Published: 2025-10-30
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/zhao-bo-of-new-distribution-why-is-the-more-useless-the-more-valuable-fc7be785/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kJBStmYTTnL58QPmN05xCg

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