R
redacted
Guest
If you want to take a private ski lesson - that starts at $80/hr. And the instructor in a lot of cases won't even be certified. If you want a private lesson from someone with real credentials you could pay up to $400/hr. More if you're interested in competitive skiing. Tennis and golf run very similar rates. Why would you expect scuba diving to be so much cheaper? It's not like you place your life (or more importantly, the lives of your loved ones) in the hands of the tennis coach or the golf pro...
The big difference here is that ski, golf, and tennis instruction is designed for folks who want to improve their skils and decided that was the correct route for them. There is not certification involved and there are other means of improvement available if one would rather not buy instruction. In fact, it is possible to become a ski, golf, or tennis professional and never buy a lesson.
Diving costs money.
Skimping on instruction is akin to diving the wrong gas just because it's too expensive. Cheap divers != safe divers in my experience. If $50/hr is too much to pay for quality instruction and you buy based on price, you're making an economic decision - not one based on quality. If the $4 air fill is "good enough" when the $40 21/25 is more appropriate you're not taking a "calculated risk" you're "cheap" and "unsafe" in my book.
Paying $300 to $400 for an OW certification is not skimping on instruction any more than paying $200 for a dive computer is skimping on safety. It is entirely possible that more expensive options are simply padded with more bells and whistles. And there are no guarantees that paying $50/hr for instruction will get you any more quality than paying $10/hr.
If you really want to see what instruction is worth, separate scuba training from certification.