The problem with the Apeks/Scubapro hype is that the industry long ago made the points they are making invalid. How long has it been since a significant advancement has been made in regulators? I believe Hog is one of the few brands with any real innovation recently, but when you get right down to the nitty-gritty Apeks regulators are no longer special as the design hasn't changed, just been fine tuned. At that point in a market it's very easy for a newer company to come in and provide the same exact product at a lower cost because they don't have to deal with all the overhead the company built over 30 years that's now weighing it down. (All companies tend toward porking up with overhead over time) This happens in every industry wherein the early innovators create a great name that often doesn't live up to the hype once the innovations have become stale. A great example of that is the car industry previously mentioned. Top non-truck sales are almost exclusively Toyota, Honda, and Nissan because Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler failed to innovate anything and succumbed to huge overhead (factory line workers making 70 bucks an hour for ex.). Because of the overhead Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler started cutting on quality or raising prices. Think of how many years those companies had nothing to compete with the Accord/Civic and Camry/Corolla. That's really not an unfair analysis of scuba regulators at the moment. That's why HOG is going to become a big deal as long as Chris doesn't change his business model.
So to 616fun the problem isn't that Apeks regulators aren't even a hair better than HOG or whatever, it's that their name is worth more than the product they are selling now which means the market is going to slowly move away from their products to competitors like HOG who are providing an equal quality product at a much reduced price with better customer service. Apeks and Scubapro should really be on notice, but it's rare that a top company sees the writing on the wall before they are overtaken by an upstart company. Their overhead for an equal quality product is going to cause them serious problems just like it does in every other industry. If it weren't for the entrenched position of many LDS due to the way contracts work with these large companies I suspect this would be changing faster, but with online sales and how every year more people use the internet to do their own research this business model is going to fail.
BTW you can't argue with pharma as helpful to your cause either. Big Pharma companies rely on innovation to stay in business because every time their patents run out they lose their sales to generics. Why pay 110-300 dollars for a drug walmart will sell you for 10 or 25 with a generic? Thats a regular part of the process in big pharma, and that's why there is always a new cutting edge drug for everything coming out. Profit for many of these companies demands innovation or their overhead will not allow them to stay in business.
Business is business is business.
So to 616fun the problem isn't that Apeks regulators aren't even a hair better than HOG or whatever, it's that their name is worth more than the product they are selling now which means the market is going to slowly move away from their products to competitors like HOG who are providing an equal quality product at a much reduced price with better customer service. Apeks and Scubapro should really be on notice, but it's rare that a top company sees the writing on the wall before they are overtaken by an upstart company. Their overhead for an equal quality product is going to cause them serious problems just like it does in every other industry. If it weren't for the entrenched position of many LDS due to the way contracts work with these large companies I suspect this would be changing faster, but with online sales and how every year more people use the internet to do their own research this business model is going to fail.
BTW you can't argue with pharma as helpful to your cause either. Big Pharma companies rely on innovation to stay in business because every time their patents run out they lose their sales to generics. Why pay 110-300 dollars for a drug walmart will sell you for 10 or 25 with a generic? Thats a regular part of the process in big pharma, and that's why there is always a new cutting edge drug for everything coming out. Profit for many of these companies demands innovation or their overhead will not allow them to stay in business.
Business is business is business.
