On 07/24/04 07:33 ET, NLM said...
Regardless of the price, what do you all think
of even HSN getting in on what THEY would call
Home Theater?
IMO, it severely bastardizes our industry...When
you see an 'As Seen on TV' sticker on a peice
of gear, you know things have gone horribly wrong.
I think this proves that Home Theater is having pretty good penetration as an idea, and uninformed people are selling and buying cheap stuff. This is like monaural VCRs in the 90s. It happened. Somebody was okay with it.
On the other hand, I now tell my clients, trying not to sound too snooty, that if they want a VCR or a TiVo, they need to go buy them because they have become a commodity, like rice, sold by the pound, and it will cost me more to supply it to them than they can buy it for. I wouldn't grow rice if I had a restaurant.
This even applies to satellite receivers, when a guy can get an HD receiver, INSTALLED with a dish, for well below my cost on the receiver alone.
What it means is that these things are not new any more and we need to evolve along with the product so that we still are providing services and goods that cannot be gotten elsewhere. Products will always pass into commonness, and new products and hookup means (and challenges) will still keep the food on the table of the custom installer, because nobody else can really afford to take the time to learn how to do it right. Just recognize when your favorite product has become a burlap bag item.