What isn't never-ending?

"The thing about branding is that it feels never-ending."

Lori Gottlieb's recent piece in The Times is obvious. One more sector of the service industry (this time, psychotherapists) comes to realize reality. Branding feels never-ending because it is never-ending; because of the Internet, because of search, because of empowering tech.

But that's not what's illuminating here, because Gottlieb's lament is being told in music, education, advertising. There's less magic now about how any of us who provide services do what we do. And our customers can more easily compare how our competitors do what they do.

It's easier than ever to ask and discover how the mysteries behind any service actually work.

Customers need less and less of any industry's artifice. Those old ideas of how to package and process a service (never mind promote it) fail in the age of Wikipedia. Customers can easily discern the component parts. We've all learned not to trust the way it is.

Yet the value of what service industries offer (therapy, songs, campaigns) hasn't changed. Skill still matters. Relationships are critical. We'll pay for premiums.

The core idea of services will endure. How they're made operational and sold must change.

Gottlieb's article bemoans coaching as a less valid form of therapy. Are we really going to blame service industry customers for buying what they understand and prefer?

Those therapists in the article portrayed as succeeding (amidst an overall decline in use of therapy) are the ones adapting to their customers. Success comes from listening and offering alternatives. How we used to do our work isn't necessarily how we will do our work now or tomorrow.

Those realities will never end.