Is more better?

[MauiScubaSteve]

If you could find an older version of the dictionary I'm pretty sure it would be what I'm talking about.

Just because a bunch of pudgy Beau and Jeff Bridges have managed to add some definitions to the word sport does not mean I adhere to all those additions, although 4, 5 and 6 now mean cyber diving on SB is sport!

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

From my dog-eared Random House Dictionary that I use every day, copyright 1980;

1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.
2. jest or fun: to say something in sport.
3. mockery or ridicule: to make sport of someone.
4. an object of mockery.
5. informal. a sportsmanlike or accommodating person.
6. informal. a person interested in sports as an occasion for gambling.
7. an animal or plant that shows an unusual deviation from the normal type.

Since my last post turned SB'ing into a sport, I will now be a sport by betting $100USD that nothing comes of all these lets make it better threads.

 

[Aquaventurewhitetip]

If you mean more divers then its good for all people that rely on the industry to pay the bills.

Just wish that with the now added dive traffic over our favourite spots "MORE" time was spent on educating them how to interact better with a world that does not belong to us.. BEFORE WE ALL F@*K IT UP.
Same goes for the AHole resort owners who damage the coast line as well. The coast line is an integral part of the sea we all love.

 

[vladimir]

From my dog-eared Random House Dictionary that I use every day, copyright 1980;

1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.
2. jest or fun: to say something in sport.
3. mockery or ridicule: to make sport of someone.
4. an object of mockery.
5. informal. a sportsmanlike or accommodating person.
6. informal. a person interested in sports as an occasion for gambling.
7. an animal or plant that shows an unusual deviation from the normal type.

Since my last post turned SB'ing into a sport, I will now be a sport by betting $100USD that nothing comes of all these lets make it better threads.

I guess it's no coincidence that in the 29 years that Americans became increasingly fat and lazy we also carved out a definition of sport that didn't require leaving the couch.

 

[*dave*]

........................

Lot's of buzz in the latest threads on the state of instruction and it caused me to consider the root cause.

More now than ever, I believe the priority has shifted from producing independent, capable divers to producing as many as is possible.

Besides the agencies, gear retailers and manufacturers, who else benefits from all these new divers? More specifically, do certified divers benefit in any way?

I'm kinda foggy on remembering prices from when I was certified, but I know a pair of XL jets sold for $50 then. Has gear gotten any cheaper?

I recall a 2 day San Clemente trip went for.... $175 in 1979. I know there are a lot more destination resorts, but have charters really gotten cheaper?

Gear was evolving at a rapid pace in the late 70's. There were some very sweet breathing regs out, even then. Scubapro's Pilot would give any modern second stage a run in terms of WOB. Evolution was taking place without the masses, have the mass sales really improved our gear?

Are more divers good for diving?

 

[Vlane]

Hey, I'm just asking.... Is more better?

More may not be necessarily be better, but can you say the same from a business perspective?

I agree that there may be some shops rushing students through while not paying enough attention to details. These students could potentially bring negative attention to diving later which is something I certainly don't want, but like others have said shops make money off new divers. As a shop you have to make a living and as internet shopping is growing more popular this can become a lot tougher. Does this make it right to crank students out? No. I want nothing more than educated divers who know what they're doing, however, as dive shops struggle not a whole lot you can do without being an instructor.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Yes *dave*, I know this seems like a sad hyjack, but I think a root problem of SCUBA is marketing it as a sport, and us poor people are not going to be able to stop that.

This is a downhill snowball and we are just going for a ride. The best we can hope for is to do better tomorrow in our own little bubble of the world. I so wanted to be an IANTD Instructor (I have the card!), but I could never get any students for a real dive class. So I became a double agent; sneaking IANTD-isms into my PADI classes.

I strive for Mike Nelsons, although mostly the good ones are budding Esther Williams'.

 

[rstofer]

Hey, I'm just asking.... Is more better?

Sure, more divers are good for the sport. In every economic model, increasing volume results in lowered prices. This doesn't work perfectly in scuba diving because of predatory pricing schemes implemented by the manufacturers but it does allow bit players to enter the market and create a certain amount of pricing pressure.

But, let the demand side dry up (no new divers) and see what happens on the supply side. Prices will drop to maintain market share and marginal players will leave the marketplace.

So, yes, the sport needs more players. At least initially. Once a diver has a full kit of gear, they are no longer important to the sport from the manufacturers point of view. Same for the LDS. However, they now enter the resort market and that's a huge business.

If we were to back up to '60s style training, the 3 or 4 new divers trained each year couldn't support any of the existing businesses. There would be no more scuba industry than there was in the '60s. You could buy a basic kit at some sporting good stores and you were on your own. You would probably have to buy a compressor.

The industry needs to produce a couple of hundred thousand new divers each year just to survive. It is certainly not a growth industry, even at that. It may get worse in coming years because those of us that can't carry a briefcase up a couple of flights of stairs (the baby boomers) are going to die off. And we created the marketplace. We created everything. Our offspring don't have nearly the education or technical skills and more important, we have all the money. Hopefully, we'll burn through it before we go.

Sure, I think we need more divers. As long as they don't actually go diving. It's getting hard to find a place to park.

Richard

 

[Garth]

I'm sorry if this is off topic everyone but I look at diving and don't consider it making a difference whether it is a sport or recreation or a business. I'm new with only 2 years of diving. My wife would call it an obsession but I consider it more than a hobby. I love being underwater. I would consider myself 'a fish' but I'm learning to scuba dive (if this makes any sense as some choose to do this on their logged dive numbers).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever the perception of diving, I will continue to do it whatever the cost.

 

[TSandM]

I think we do benefit from having more divers.

In WA State, we have an organization called the Washington Scuba Alliance, that has lobbied for the building of stairs at local dive sites, and for putting in mooring buoys to preserve sites from anchor damage. It takes a critical mass of divers to do that.

I have two dive shops within ten minutes' drive of my house. It takes a certain number of divers to support that density of shops.

We have charter boats up and down the Sound (although, sadly, fewer than we had a few years back). Without active divers, those boats would not exist.

Major projects like sinking the Oriskany would not take place, were there not enough divers to make an attractive economic addition to the local communities.

Small manufacturers like Deep Sea Supply exist off the fringe of the diving community; make that fringe small enough, and those boutique manufacturers disappear, reducing the choices we all have in what gear we want to own and dive.

There aren't enough of us to have huge economies of scale, but I think there are a lot of opportunities we have that exist because there are enough of us to support them. But those divers have to be DIVING for some of them to work. You can buy gear and not dive, but that doesn't support charter boats and resorts and wrecks-to-reefs projects.