What is the fundamental reason that prevents scuba diving from becoming popular?

[Mrs. B]

It’s very strange and difficult to explain but solo climbers don’t involve anyone else and I really think it’s mostly about liability.

It bothered me quite a bit after the Conception fire when nobody could state the obvious.

Nobody cares about cyclists either even when it was not their fault. I found the average person shockingly hostile to cyclists in many California places.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Solo climbers and solo hikers, too, are venerated. I really admire the solo hikers I see on trail. A friend of mine hiked the Pacific Crest trail solo last year. Solo long-distance hiking in remote areas is probably safer than it was, now that many carry PLBs, update their Facebook posts/blogs every few days, etc. Not really analogous to diving.

 

[scubadada]

Solo climbers and solo hikers, too, are venerated. I really admire the solo hikers I see on trail. A friend of mine hiked the Pacific Crest trail solo last year. Solo long-distance hiking in remote areas is probably safer than it was, now that many carry PLBs, update their Facebook posts/blogs every few days, etc. Not really analogous to diving.

I did all my solo backpacking from the late 60s until 1980, no PLB, no cell phones, no social media, just wired telephones. I would tell a couple people, including my mother, when I was leaving and when I expected to get back. I would say to contact the authorities if I was more than a couple of days late. I often came back one or two days late if I made less mileage than I thought and/or because of inclement weather. It was a very different time then than now.

 

[Mrs. B]

Solo climbers and solo hikers, too, are venerated. I really admire the solo hikers I see on trail. A friend of mine hiked the Pacific Crest trail solo last year. Solo long-distance hiking in remote areas is probably safer than it was, now that many carry PLBs, update their Facebook posts/blogs every few days, etc. Not really analogous to diving.

My mother would go out on the Appalachian trail for days by herself. I told her to at least get a hammock but she just slept on the ground.

She did her solo and got her pilots license when she was seven months pregnant and she would throw me in the back where there wasn’t even a seat.

When my flight instructor and her husband died in a crash, I quit. I decided my husband was better and I’d just fly with him.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

How did we go from ‘why isn’t scuba diving more popular’ to hiking?

 

[Mrs. B]

Easy, people were discussing other things they like to do and the pleasure:effort ratio.

 

[scubadada]

How did we go from ‘why isn’t scuba diving more popular’ to hiking?

Solo or buddy/group pursuit of activities some view as risky.

 

[MiloR]

I have read all of these and I agree with many of the responses:

-Diving is expensive. Training, gear (rental or purchase), travel (vacation - or local). Just for me to get to a local Quarry is maybe $100 in gas round trip, camping charge, tank refills, food. Call it $200 which is a lot for many younger people once a month let alone multiple times.
-Diving is difficult to do often enough you get proficient if you don't have a group you know or another person. This is connected to the cost issue somewhat.
-Younger people (I am 51 for reference) do a lot of things on the Internet and frankly....people on the Internet are not nice. They are, generically, a bunch of know it all blowhards that make the concept of getting into diving not very interesting. I am not pointing at anyone but if feel the need to respond to this post refuting that then you are one of those people.
-There are just so many other things to do and access/knowledge of them is really easy to acquire. I connect this to broadcast TV vs Cable vs Streaming. When you had 4 channels that was all you could choose from. When you get cable and had 100 channels your choices got harder. Then you got Streaming and now you have 10,000 choices avail at any minute of the day/night. Shift that analogy to Extracurricular activities and you can see where the competition lies. So you have the competition PLUS the other three I mention above and people are choosing other things.

 

[rx7diver]

Yes, the expense (even just to get certified) can be daunting. I mentioned this back in post #33 of this thread. However, I recently came face-to-face with these expenses once again.

My daughter took a leave of absence from her univ this past year. While she was home, she took a couple of courses at the univ in this town. One of the courses was this univ's scuba course, a semester-long NAUI course.

I was very, very happy that my daughter was able to undergo 16 weeks of very thorough scuba instruction via a course that followed a PE/YMCA curriculum. However, the price of a three-undergraduate student credit hour course, for tuition and fees and textbooks, at a R1 univ, is not insignificant--even allowing for the tuition discount we received by virtue of my employee benefits. (This univ is one of four universities that are part of a univ system, and I am employed at the system's "corporate offices" division.)

My daughter's course included the use of the univ's equipment for the pool sessions for "free", but I had to pay for my daughter's open water checkout, including her instructor's fee, travel, air fills, and any gear that she used during the checkout that she couldn't source from her mom and me. So, she needed to rent (only) a wet suit, weights, and a pair of Al 80 cylinders, and I purchased a new mask and watch for her. (The rest of the gear she used was owned by her mom and me.)

The final price was $$.

Never underestimate how much the reality of the full sticker price of certification training impacts someone's dream to take up scuba!

rx7diver

P.S.: When I took my daughter's course in 1986, the course cost me very much less (because I was granted a tuition waiver as a result of being either a GTA or GRA in my home department, Statistics, or a GRA for one of the Graduate School deans). The rest of my scuba expenses were covered by my meager GTA/GRA stipend.

 

[Lorenzoid]

frankly....people on the Internet are not nice. They are, generically, a bunch of know it all blowhards that make the concept of getting into diving not very interesting. I am not pointing at anyone but if feel the need to respond to this post refuting that then you are one of those people.

I'm not refuting it. It's a fascinating thought that some of the people who believe they are being encouraging to new divers or people interested in diving may actually be turning them off from diving with their fountain of knowledge.