I’ve never been to CES but I have been to enough trade shows to know what a pain in the ass they are for both the attendees and booth operators. You scum around all day feigning interest in Company D’s products with the hope that you’ll get an invite to their party that evening. At the party, it’s a sales puke sausage fest with hired local talent to entertain you into more interest in Company D’s products. The end result – you’re creating a quantity 1000 purchase order for a product that nobody probably needs but that you now have QTY 1000 reasons for them to buy. It’s an ugly circle that surrounds CES and other trade shows and ultimately, it’s about consumption.

That’s why it was nice to read Matt Honan’s post on Gizmodo about his take on CES 2012. Here’s a portion:

I try to remember all the products I’ve talked about that I won’t even bother to cover—and that nobody’s going to buy. There were some Bluetooth speakers. Or maybe they were WiFi. But there was definitely a helmet cam. And a waterproof phone. And a tablet and an ultrabook and an OLED TV. There was ennui [weariness] upon ennui [lack of interest] upon ennui [boredom] set in this amazing temple to technology.

An executive in a really nice suit from an up-and-coming display company tells me they plan to ship a half a million units this year. I try to figure out how much that is in kilograms of rare earth metals, but I can’t.

The full article is a great read and accurately reports the effect of trade shows like CES. It’s all about the “want” in consumption and not about the need of it.