Do you have to defend your sidemount setup?

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What amazes me is that in almost 2 years of diving I've yet to meet these condescending and generally unpleasant divers I keep reading about online.

And you rarely will. This, along with failure points and streamlining, are more of an internet diving problem than an actual real world diving problem.
 
... are more of an internet diving problem than an actual real world diving problem.
Sadly you can meet those internet divers in real life later.
Has been a horrible experience for me on most occasions (with several exceptions, but also some exceptionally horrible cases).

With divers you do not know from the internet it is ok, but it becomes harder the more experienced you get, newly certified and obviously inexperienced divers are often treated much better than those that talk instead of listening.

Some reactions are just typical curiosity, sometimes however you talk to people who have already developed an opinion before meeting you.

It depends on local diving culture, but I am often told:
'You do not need this here' and 'This is not a cave, why do you use sidemount here', or 'We do not plan to dive restrictions today, do you?'.
Easy to explain without getting too defensive about it.

However, you can also get drastically different reactions - rarely, but it happens.
 
I often have to defend my sidemount setup facing divers who dive with normal BCD and single bottle. It bothers me. Is there other who gets annoying comments from people who think it's ridiculous, and dont understand why you dont dive as the them and what do you say?
Why would you not dive in SM? I just tell people that I like it better. Long and pointless discussions are for online forums.
 
I gave up on Stab jackets a long time ago and switched to soft harness and wing for most of my dives. Also have a sidemount rig. I don't understand why others would criticize a personal choice of gear unless they were insecure about themselves... or there was an obvious safety hazard involved. Now I have on occasion advised others when something was amiss and even criticized some when they forgot to do something significant (like the guy who tried "SCUBA" diving without a tank or weight belt! His reg was there but what it was attached to I can't remember.)

I do get criticized on occasion for not taking my pony bottle along when I dive solo, and accept that criticism.
 
but chevy isn't selling at a 30% markup while ford is selling at a 100% markup, and that is my problem.
Your problem is you don't understand "markups". There is no such thing as a %100 markup unless you found an item and expended no time, energy or costs selling it. What you think is a "%100" markup is actually referred to as SRP, Keystone or a %50 markup. That means that half of the price of the item is gross profit. it's the golden calf of retail since it's what keeps the lights on. A %40 markup requires you to multiply your cost by 1.62 (as opposed to 2.0) and a %30 markup means you multiply your cost by 1.5. Traditionally, most MAP agreements require a %40 markup, but I have seen shops sell those hallowed BP&Wings at full Keystone.

For a while, it seemed that many e-tailers were opting for micro markups (less than %25 or 1.3) but they found that the volume wasn't always there to support that. The only way to get around this is to cut out the middle man, aka the LDS, much like Deep Six is doing. This is fine if you don't need your LDS for frills like air or NitrOx. In reality, most e-tailers are selling at a %40 or %50 markup if they can. It only makes sense, since they have light bills too.

Is this a bit confusing? Of course it is. Retailers like to bamboozle the Tbones of the world into thinking they got a superior product at a superior price in hopes that they'll bash the hell out of the competition and that no one will point out that they are merely talking nonsense. Any clown can tear down a place... it takes someone with skill to actually build one. So beware the internet bashers who think they sound informed by calling people they've never met "greedy", when in actuality they are only demonstrating how clueless they really are.

Almost all the LDSes I know of are hobbyists trying to do what they love. Few really understand marketing and many fold because of it. They are driven by anything but greed, though they often make poor decisions especially when losing their shop becomes imminent. "This was supposed to be fun", they thought. "I was supposed to be able to support myself and my family!" Never start a vast project with half vast ideas. The best way to make a million in the Scuba industry is to start off with two.
 
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@NetDoc that would be 100% profit that you're describing. Markup is cost of goods +cost of goods*markup. I.e. 100% markup for a $10 item is $10+$10*100%=$20. I'm not saying plates aren't sold at that markup, I'm aware that they are, but I also have pricing sheets that have bc's sold at 200% markup
 
I've never encountered anything negative personally. At most, just genuine curiosity.

I have however heard of instructors telling divers that 'sidemount is only for cave/tech' etc. That's just ignorance... or an ego deflection to avoid discussion on something the instructor is not infallible to discuss. Similar things are said about BP&W etc...
 
You'll hear them every now and then... And then after the dive if you meet them underwater, they'll come and ask if they can try because it seemed so much easier than their gear.
 
@NetDoc and @tbone1004

I think you are saying the same thing ...
according with Wikipedia:
Markup = (Sale price / Cost) − 1
if I want Markup to be 100% hence 1:
1 = (Sale price / Cost) − 1 ==> 2 = (Sale price / Cost)
meaning that I have a sale price that is the cost multiplied by 2:
[1] Sale price = 2 x Cost
or in other words I have the sale price equal to the cost plus a percentage (100% = 1 - the markup) of the cost itself:
Sale price = Cost + 1 x Cost ==> Sale price = 2 x Cost [2]

It is pretty evident that [1] an [2] are identical.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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