Originally Posted by
J.Higgins
Agreed. Look at the auto industry. You cant even touch a decent car for less than $30k now. I feel so sorry for all of the younger people who are forking over a weeks pay or more per month just to support their transportation costs. Not exactly apples-to-apples alignment with the thread topic, but I guess I'm trying to illustrate that this sort of thing is happening in every market. Companies are instilling value-added (supposedly) to their products in order to gain more revenue. In cars again, do we really need all of the electronic garbage they feed us? Do we need lane departure sensing and all that? I don't feel like we do, but at the same time, its becoming hard to find a car that doesn't have it. Manufacturers are adding disc brakes to their bikes and charging more for them. See the pattern repeating itself? They know that if you want to be a-peddlin', then you'll be a-payin'.
Cars aren't necessarily a great example here - many of the features that make modern cars larger, more complex and more expensive are federally mandated and out of the hands of the manufacturers - anti-locks, traction control, airbags everywhere, rear cameras, crash protection etc etc. And for the featured that aren't required - AWD, for example, the industry has done a good job convincing the consumer that venturing out without essentially an all-terrain combat vehicle will result in instant death for themselves and their families. I'm pretty sure that in less stringent markets like India, for example, you could buy a cheap car with none of these features for under $10k, but you couldn't sell it in any Western market, and very few drivers would venture into this country's roads in such a vehicle, even if they could acquire one.
Bicycle are different, in that only the most basic features are required.