Sophisticated glamorous things fall apart, the prosumer will not hold on.
I have lived long enough to know that the good things in our society come and go. There is always somebody gaming your business plan, and all the gains to be made are at the choice points of inflection. Otherwise, basically nobody cares what you think unless you are paying them to.
Today's news is that Google is turning off reader. This is likely to consign the protocol or RSS to the dustbin of history. Which also means that small players can step up and grab market share for something Google finds too miniscule. RSS has hit the Whoopi number. Whoopi Goldberg famously said of network television, it's the only place where people with 1 million friends are called losers.
In the space between total industrialization and bespoke craftsmanship is a medium sized long tail. This is the place I have decided to approach. I think I can. As I have been cruising the areas of Etsy and EDC and TNP and Atwood, I have found a goodly number of medium sized joints that remain willing to be of service. And it is in this area that we must make our differentiations. You see, I am convinced, having long ago decided to become a Neo-Victorian, that I am liking where my new tastes are taking me. And I am finding less and less disappointment as the mass marketers gradually degrade their products as they sell them to the late adopters...
Once upon a time there were record players. You had one, remember? When the record skipped, youscotch taped a quarter to it and that fixed it. The record was good for about a hundred more plays and then it went to the shelf, hopefully out of the sun's rays. When I started selling radios, I learned all the parts of a record player were actually components that a bunch of different manufacturers could specialize in and the world opened before me. The 'record player' had a tonearm, cartridge, stylus, turntable with either belt or direct drive a variable speed motor you tuned with a strobe against the platter. It's output went to a phono amp of two sorts depending upon wither your cartridge and stylus were moving magnet or moving coil. This went into the control pre-amp and maybe through an equalizer and then to a power amplifier, or several depending upon whether or not your speaker system was bi-amped with large amps for the bass separate from the midrange and tweeters. Let's not forget subwoofers. All of these could be purchased separately mixed and matched and arranged for a price, but the quality was stellar. A long way from a record player.
Once upon a time there were motorcycles and automobilies you could put together and take apart. There were aftermarkets and technical training schools. But today, not so much. And you cannot buy component stereo any longer - not in the mainstream.
I just purchased a watch repair kit for $15 at Amazon. It doesn't pay to be a jeweler any longer. I remember the last time I sent my best watch to be cleaned, or my wingtips to be resoled. It was about at the turn of the century, both times by men older than my father, grumpy with fascinating hands. I wonder if these are technologies to be hacked and done by self in the future. I reckon that they must be, because who is going to have money for replacement?
Think about it when your smartphone dies.
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