In February of 2022 Twitter introduced a new feature called “safe mode.”
THE social media platform hoping to “reduce disruptive interactions” people experience on Twitter by “blocking accounts which Twitter feels are engaged in harmful language such as insults or threatening remarks.”
Twitter claims that the algorithm used to police safe mode is so sophisticated that users will not need to report an offending Tweet. Because, “Authors of Tweets found by our technology to be harmful will be autoblocked.”
Of course, what distinguishes between an insult and a barb is frequently a matter of opinion. What generation you were born into and where you are from, often contributing to your point of view.
Twitter, is obvioulsy not from the Bronx!
As a young paint dealer, I had myriad brands and manufacturers to choose from when ordering paint to fill the shelves at my two Bronx, New York stores, Tremont Paint.
In addition to the national brands from Benjamin Moore, PPG and Pratt & Lambert, I had price books from regional paint manufacturers such as Ox-Line, Duron, or Porter Paints among countless others forgotten to time.
Beyond the regionals, for more than a century New York city was a hub for locally-owned paint manufacturers. As recently as the mid-1980's the Big Apple was the home to more than two-dozen paint manufacturers including a handful in The Bronx.
The menagerie of local grinders often accounting for 40% of Tremont’s yearly paint purchases.
But in an economy which rewards scale over accessibility the number of paint manufacturers has steadily dropped over the last 50-years. Currently there are less than 1,000 companies manufacturing paint in the United States. That number down more than 50% since the 80's.
While demand for architectural coatings has grown at an incalculable multiple during that time.
The truncated number of manufacturers committed to the independent channel recently conspiring with product shortages, supply chain failures and changes in distribution strategies to make the work of paint dealers and their paint buyers, consistently arduous.
But help it seems, is on the way!
It’s a Scoop!
My guest on a podcast episode I recorded last week shared news that one of the nation’s largest paint manufacturers has begun distributing their products in a region of the country where heretofore, that company's products were unavailable.
That brand now available exclusively in this region at independent paint retailers!
The first such announcement from a paint manufacturer this size in the more than 30-years I have been covering the independent dealer channel.
And I'm expecting more!
Because while #Sherwin-Williams and #PPG have gotten too big to trifle with independents, the nation’s other paint manufacturers are beginning to see the opportunity in the only growing segment of the country's paint distribution channels, THE independent channel.
That growth likely adding more than $500 million per-year to the channel’s total purchases of architectural coatings. More than enough to entice the nation's paint makers off of the sidelines and into the game with independents.
Sorry #Dan, it’s not all for you!
You'll hear it here first!
