Posted by JRM on November 21, 2000 at 20:27:45:
In Reply to: Re: What's wrong with dive industry economics? posted by JRM on November 21, 2000 at 16:28:23:
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I'm sitting here in cubicle-hell tonight babysitting our latest project as it crashes and burns, and I really don't have anything better to do.
But I would like to ammend my above post. I think that people will actually pay *more* for faster and easier training. If your class takes two months but costs less than my class that takes a week, I bet I'll get the business. Because we're in a society of instant gratification. The biggest idea of Reaganomics is just that, instant gratification. Don't save to buy, just go into debt! Have it now. Use it while you pay. And guess what, we appreciate things much less, because we really didn't feel like we earned them. I happen to be of a mindset that if I can't pay cash for an item (hobby especially), then I can't afford it. As such, I've had to buy my gear in chunks. I pretty much have it all assembled now, but I think I appreciate it much more because I had to wait and save to buy it. I didn't really appreciate the skill of my instructors until I heard from some folks about theirs.
I have always wanted to dive. And my wife bugged me since day one to get cert'ed. And now I'm at a point in my life where I can afford (dollarwise) to get into a new hobby. Time is still a bit on the rare side, but even that is looking up. And I'll freely admit that two of the factors that swayed my decision of where to get my cert were time and money. I thought they were all the same. That and I heard horror stories about the other major store in my swarthy little hamlet. Luckily, I landed with a great OW instructor. But even though I consider myself a somewhat educated and intelligent person (which instantly defines me as ignorant of a great many things:-), I never even thought to investigate the thouroughness of the training. I figured PADI was the biggest because they were the best, and I should go that route.
So what do we have to do in order to curb this. Is there anything that we mere diving mortals (and us newbies) can do. I've been telling all my friends who show an interest that they should use the instructor I did (even though he is PADI) because I feel I got a decent grounding in diving from him. I figure that's about the extent of my sphere of influence. Is there anything else?
Maybe we should run late-night diving infomercials. Then we might get an audience.
JRM