Right now at my local grocery, a 12-pack of store-brand bottled waters retails for $2.49. But why merely quench your thirst when you could murder it? That’s the selling proposition behind Liquid Death, a 3-year-old startup offering the same quantity of spring water, but marketed like a beer and packaged in “tallboy” aluminum cans, for $19.99 on Amazon.
That such a product exists is a sure sign of the extravagant affluence produced by modern capitalism. Thousands of people have happily agreed to a 700 percent markup in exchange for a funny ad campaign, and founder Mike Cessario—a former Netflix creative director—has raised more than $30 million in capital for the project.
It sounds like a ripoff, but Liquid Death has garnered 4.6 stars out of 5 thanks to a legion of customers who are in on the joke.
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