Yes it is a pity about PADI mania, but their domination appears to be very much like the PC/MAC situation in that the organisation with the best marketing capabilities wins and the product quality is almost irrelevant.
I got certified OW in April 2001. When I was choosing an organisation, my local dive shop advised me as follows...
* do you want to do most of your diving in the UK
* or do you want to dive all around the world?
I answered "round the world" and was told that the only realistic option was PADI. So if that's what people are being told, that is what they are asking for.
If I had answered "UK", they would have told me BSAC. I only heard of NAUI and other organisations when I started looking at scuba sites on the web.
Having experienced the...
"open water in 3 days" - including theory and exam
while on holiday in the Dominican Republic
...I can really undestand the...
put another dollar in and
pay and dive immediately
On the other hand, the speed of the course put my wife off diving, as it was WAY too fast for her
She dropped out after day 1 and I had to fight for a partial refund.
(Sea Pro, Playa Dorada, Puerta Plata)
I also was not even sure after my certification and training whether or not I even liked diving? That's got to be a little crazy right? But a trip to the Red Sea for diving and AOW, soon settled that one - loved it
Probably the BSAC training would have been more thorough and relaxed (for my wife too, with hindsight), but I wanted a card that would let me dive all round the world. I was told that BSAC is not accepted in all countries and PADI is. I'm not sure if that is true.
But the point of all of this is that to make yourself more marketable, maybe you need multiple instructor certifications scubalazs?
After all, if the people ask for PADI courses and you can't give them PADI, you'll see that, undesirable as it may be, they have already achieved domination.
But surely they would let you be a dive guide or helper with an alternative qualification wouldn't they?
If the PC/MAC analogy continues though, the existence of other organisations will force PADI to tighten up their product offerings.
I've been a PC user for years, 18 months ago I bought a MAC for a particular project, and I realsed that all the hype about MACs being so good was no longer true. The only tangible benefit I could see with the MAC was the ability to change screen resolution without re-booting.
In a few years time we may see PADI offerings incorporating the best of all current thinking. They's be totally stupid to ignore the good aspects of other organisations' training programs. ;-0
