gfisher4792 once bubbled...
I think the whole US LDS/online sales conflict will come to a head and the manufacturers will have to acknowledge they sell their wares in a free market society.
I agree.
Pretty soon one of the major players will take the internet seriously as a distribution network and fight fire with fire, undercutting even Leisurepro with factory direct sales over the internet.
Once the first one takes the plunge then costs of dive gear will go down dramatically as the others jump on teh band wagon.
A number of fusions and bankrupties will follow as companies scramble to leverage economies of scale. Profit margins will vaporize, quality will suffer and the good after sales service we are used to will be a thing of the past. 2 or 3 major players will survive world wide with names like Aquasuunto and Scubalung. Their 0800 numbers will never work.
The free market will really start to kick in then......
Dive shops will suffer and many will go out of business as the manufacturers abandon their traditional distribution network. When this happens a flood of 2nd hand compressors will hit the market and compressor manufacturers will sell few--maybe *very* few--new units as dive shops go out of business. This will be taken-out of the hides of the customers too. Does $20 for an air fill sound rediculous?
The price of diver training will also skyrocket as dive shops can no longer subsidize traing by selling gear. The availability of training will be reduced as only major coastal locations will be able to support any kind of scuba industry, PADI's profit margins will drop as the number of certifications plummets putting more price pressure on dive shops. In fact the training will become *so* expensive that "freelancers"--many of whom *used* to be instructors before the market caved-in--will start doing it for themselves. If this takes hold the government will step in and regulate it and we'll all have to salute, and shout "GOD BLESS AMERICA" before we do the giant stride. I'm really looking forward to that part.
In America you'll be lucky and unlucky. The lucky bit is that the YMCA will survive this trend and become the dominant training agency. The unlucky part is that they'll have to teach CMAS to get around government regulations and the American government will black list them for going French, label the YMCA a terrorist organisation and claim that it stands for "Young Muslims Crucifying Americans". They'll also send bus loads of FBI agents to run around YMCA locations sniffing for croissants and planting weapons of mass desctruction to be found later (or maybe just lying about it--that seems to work too). [note: this is intended as (cynical) humour]
On the up side, asking customers to pay 10 times as much for training might just raise people's expectations of the quality and this could actually be helpful ....
R..
I'm changing the fins as soon as I find a pair that fit my drysuit.
