---------- Post added April 2nd, 2015 at 11:35 AM ----------
This seems to me to be an indication that it is sustainable - as part of a long-term cyclical process. And you can't really expect any industry to remain static. So, lots of people have $99 courses. Eventually, the pool of these classes shrinks, as various shops fail because they weren't able to sustain their business. Eventually, the pool shrinks enough that supply and demand results in prices starting to go back up. They go up enough and the pool starts to increase again. It's a cycle. Does that mean that the shop that's offering a $99 class has an unsustainable business? If you somehow think that businesses should never change their prices, ever, then yes. But, if you expect that the shop will change their pricing over time, to reflect market demands, then the sustainability of their business has mostly to do with other aspects of their business. Unless it's not a full-on dive shop and, instead, really just an OW training business.
I know what you are saying but nowhere that I know do businesses dramatically cut prices like that. My feeling is its fine to have a special and knock $50.00 bucks off for a month or something, but dropping the price to almost junk status just diminishes the value of the course in the eye of the customer.
Its my feeling in the scuba world there are few stores worldwide who can survive on one area of the business, diving is just not big enough, and once the customer has a mask for example you are not selling him another for a while, unlike Taco's where he may buy another one tomorrow scuba gear is mostly a once off or at best infrequent purchase, so the store needs to profit from everything they do, courses, air fills, gear sales, tours etc, trying to recover your losses on a course via "possible" future gear sales is a risky business in such a low sales enviroment.
In the photography course I went on you had to have your own camera to even sign on, they dont lend or hire you one for the day and you cant pitch up with an Instamatic or an old Polaroid, you had to make the investment on a specific standard of camera to be committed to the course, I see that as a good thing, the instructor didnt stand there wasting his time talking to folk who may or may not get involved later, we were in the game to learn, boots and all, we had made the investment, but in diving people think its fine to borrow their mates old rubber mask and snorkel with a ping pong ball in the top, a wetsuit, two sizes too big, pitch up late to class, and then complain diving's not for them because they were cold and had water up their nose,... but hey, it doesn't matter, because we only spent the equivalent of a night out at the movies and a restaurant.
Now sure,.... I know not all new students are like that, and some might think thats an extreme scenario, but actually its not, believe me, when there is no real commitment to learn, people see it as just something to do to pass the time and in my opinion that never makes for good diver training and seldom benefits the long term commercial or professional side of the sport.
---------- Post added April 2nd, 2015 at 07:18 PM ----------
It has long fascinated me how the public has a different view of scuba pricing, whether for instruction, gear, or servicing, then they do for the rest of their world.
I recently purchased a new toilet. I can do most plumbing, but I hate doing it. I called a couple of plumbing services and found that they all charged about $170 per hour, and they estimated it would take 1.5 hours. My son also purchased a new toilet from an online dealer at about the same time, and they offered installation for "only" $1,000. We each did it ourselves, taking about 1.5 hours each.
I recently had several electrical problems in the house. I normally do my own electrical work as well, but these issues had me a bit worried about making a mistake. I called in an electrician, and he had a book of standard prices for standard repairs. I agreed to do it. The total cost was several hundred dollars, and it took him about 10 minutes to finish the work. I estimate that, counting the time it took him to listen to me explain the problems, he got about $1,000 per hour.
Since those rates were pretty standard across the profession in my area, I assume people must be willing to pay those prices, and they must think they are fair.
My scuba instructional pay, oddly enough, is not standard. I am taught according to the number of students. If I teach a class of 3 students, I get half the pay I would get for a class of 6 students, even though they take the same amount of time. Taking a rough estimate of average class size, I would say it would take me nearly 30 hours of instruction to earn what a plumber makes putting in a toilet in 1.5 hours.
Indeed. indeed, and this is the issue, instructors get paid tuppence because the course price is so low theres nothing left. Not many full time instructors can make a decent standard of living in the scuba industry and I say that's not right. Living in your Kombi or with 6 other people in a small room in the seedy area of town may be fine when you are 18 and free of any obligations, but you would be hard pressed to survive as a full time instructor on 99 bucks a student and still feed your kids and pay the rent.
The dive industry has for years and years undersold itself, why, I dont know!.
I was just being facetious. And yes, I see what you did there. 
