Originally Posted by
Steve_sr
I can't imagine that Shimano (or other suppliers) would be playing favorites with the larger OEMs at the cost to smaller LBS. Starving the LBS would likely put them and their brand support out of business... which wouldn't be a good long term strategy.
From what I hear, this is very much the case and they are really hurting small shops right now. The guys at Shimano USA have their heart in the right place but I don't think they are calling the shots and Japan really doesn't GAS about small shops. Their actions have been pushing small shops to go with SRAM since before the pandemic. Especially mountain bike oriented shops.
As far as introducing new "standards" Shimano has never cared about that in the time I've been watching them, which is almost 50 years now. It does work for them, look how everyone has adopted what they decided to push, particularly flat mount. I like flat mount for forks, but Hayes used to have a rear mount like flat mount and it died out for a reason. Probably because none of the big manufacturers could make it reliably, just like they do a horrible job of making frames with flat mount. As far as some of these changes to the bike industry, a lot of them were started before the pandemic hit when the industry wasn't doing well. So they are just the typical make something new so people will buy it gambit. But I'm a bit floored companies keep coming out with new stuff when the old stuff is in such poor supply.