What is the fundamental reason that prevents scuba diving from becoming popular?

[Wibble]

That would depend on the style of shooting you are involved with and the type of firearm Here are a few of mine and I shoot more than dive these days. I swapped out the Vortex and S&B optics for a Tangent Theta and a ZCO but ELR shooting costs me 10+ times what diving does. While I have great dive gear, it pales in cost comparison to firearms.
View attachment 719752

Wow, that's not your run of the mill gun thing you see on telly (mainly AK47s!).

What kind of distance are those shot over -- assume it's target shooting? That bottom one looks rather esoteric!

Also, what kind of cost for one bang? i.e. ammunition?

 

[DAJ]

I shoot out to 2,000 yards but most of the time I keep it between 1,000 - 1,500 yards. The top one is an Accuracy International AX in 6.5 Creedmoor. The second is an Accuracy International AX in .338 Lapua, and the bottom is an EDM Arms Windrunner in 50 cal. EDM was the original receiver maker for Cheytac and more folks seem to know what that is after watching the movie Shooter. Unfortunately, Bill passed away a few years ago and EDM is no longer in operation. These are just three but in rifles I also shoot .22, .223/5.56, 6.8, .300, .308, 30-06, 30-30, .357, .375, .416, .44, 45-70, and .458

I reload for everything I shoot so the cost is not too bad but what you save in reloading, you lose in buying more reloading equipment/supplies so overall, you don't save a great deal of money. For factory rounds currently, Hornady 6.5 will run you about two dollars a round. .338 from Lapua and Hornady .50 match goes for about eight dollars a round. You can shoot cheaper factory ammo but that kind of defeats the purpose when shooting ELR. When you throw eight dollars down range with every pull of the trigger, it adds up quick. I would not recommend the average person get into this without reloading.

 

[CuzzA]

Irrelevant for you... I insist in my position, that cost isn't the biggest factor.
Fear (own & family), time, distance are more relevant factors. Now, if you wish to play with Demographics to make a point, IMO the majority of 16 year old kids that want to go diving are incited by their own parents and therefore the equipment costs absorbed by them.

Hobbies independently of age are competing with other hobbies as you've already recognized. Obviously the 16 - 25 year old that you're mentioning has limited resources so in this case, diving is competing with... an iPhone.

What I said is that all and all, Diving is NOT an expensive hobby especially if you factor-in the amortization of the equipment in the long run. That's why I posted Motorcycles and Photography as an example. Also, limiting the demographics to an age that has less income makes diving costs look worse than they are. Try a weekend of Skiing in the Bavarian Alps as a 16 year old kid and then we talk...
The 30s that you've mentioned are also perfectly fine.

In addition, a newly Certified diver DOES NOT NEED TO PURCHASE any equipment besides his mask for the first couple of years, especially if the number of dives isn't enough to justify the investment. So all and all, after Certification, renting gear 10 times during Summer isn't that much of a hassle. Of course, if they like the hobby and decide to continue, investing that amount isn't crazy at all.

Dude, you're just wrong. Your bias is blinding you and you're using opinion rather than facts based on studied data.

The demographics of open water entry level divers from DEMA for 2018.

It ain't 18 year olds working at ChicFilA who are getting certified. It's college graduated, 30 year old, home owning, adults making over $100k.

Fear of diving or medical condition certainly plays a role, but it ain't the biggest one. It's money. Diving is not cheap. Hell, it's really not cheap once you build a dive boat. Ask me how I know.

 

[Wibble]

Dude, you're just wrong. Your bias is blinding you and you're using opinion rather than facts based on studied data.

The demographics of open water entry level divers from DEMA for 2018.

View attachment 719815

It ain't 18 year olds working at ChicFilA who are getting certified. It's college graduated, 30 year old, home owning, adults making over $100k.

Fear of diving or medical condition certainly plays a role, but it ain't the biggest one. It's money. Diving is not cheap. Hell, it's really not cheap once you build a dive boat. Ask me how I know.

Would be very interesting to delve more into those statistics.

There will always be a lot more "beginners" in resort locations (warm, clear, calm). This is bound to be a wider range of ages, but dominated by younger people simply because older people may not take the opportunity of diving, preferring other holiday activities.

Moving on from basic training -- when the addiction begins to bite -- would be far more disposable income related as not everyone lives close to resort locations, so diving is much harder and needs more commitment. Take the US industrial heartlands; cold in the winter and lots of visibility challenges. One would expect this to be spread across a much wider age demographic with no particular 'spikes' in ages.

Of course there's those who don't dive at home, preferring to fly to warmer locations for their sub-aquatic fix. Money and time are required for this.

Get on to full technical diving community you need decent places to do that kind of diving. Money, dedication and experience are the main requirements. Lots of sea diving on wrecks, cave diving and training diving. Extensive kit requirements; CCR, heating, etc. This community is dominated by older people (in my experience) with plenty of disposable income and time. There's a lot of "techies" who dive be that engineers, software developers, medical professionals, or others with a mathematical 'brain'.

Maybe a set of questionnaires on here would be possible? Must split the levels though.

 

[El Diablo]

Dude, you're just wrong. Your bias is blinding you and you're using opinion rather than facts based on studied data.

The demographics of open water entry level divers from DEMA for 2018.

View attachment 719815

It ain't 18 year olds working at ChicFilA who are getting certified. It's college graduated, 30 year old, home owning, adults making over $100k.

Fear of diving or medical condition certainly plays a role, but it ain't the biggest one. It's money. Diving is not cheap. Hell, it's really not cheap once you build a dive boat. Ask me how I know.

'Dude' how exactly am I wrong??? There's a reason you have 2 ears, 2 eyes and only 1 mouth... read what was written instead of rushing to criticize.

1. The original OP question was why not more people is inclined to join Scuba Diving. Some folks replied that COST is the main reason, I DISAGREE. Your statistics are proving exactly that, that the av. income is quite good.

2. Someone mentioned that a 16 year old cannot afford diving. I said that parents pay that normally and that I doubt that the target group belongs to that demographic. Someone else said that divers are around their 30s. I AGREE. Your statistics confirm that as well.

3. I stay by my opinion: Fear, Location, lack of Friends and ESPECIALLY Time are the main reasons people don't join diving. Cost is not such an important factor as there are many hobbies much more expensive. than diving.

Closing, I also mentioned that those questions are too vague as they depend on the geographical location and/or more specifically the country. You prove my point again. That data is from USA only, FYI the world is a much bigger place

 

[El Diablo]

The costs for motorcycling in Deutschland are significantly higher than in Florida. I believe you mentioned $1500 or so for the license. In FL, it's just the cost for a license renewal. That's it.

Agreed. Tires definitely aren't cheap, and don't last all that long. But it's nothing compared to boat costs (either lump sum with maintenance, or charter fees).

Yep, as I mentioned before, this question / topic cannot be simplified as it is extremely country dependent. We all express our point of view from our personal experiences, that's why we can't see 'eye to eye'

 

[El Diablo]

Alot of y'all have expensive hobbies. I tend to think we on this board have more disposable income than average. Most folks have cheaper hobbies

Aside from scuba, my hobbies are cheap. I like to play hoops - the cost is sneakers and a ball. I like to hike - cost is gas $ only. I like riding my bike - that cost $500 (admittedly, I could have bought a more expensive bike), but there is little continuing cost.

Compared to many popular hobbies out there, scuba is definitely cost prohibitive.

Its also is the only hobby of mine that required prior training before I undertook it.

Hiking can also be quite expensive. I went UL this year and spent almost 2.5K on new equipment... (including a 1K Ricoh GR III that weighs only 290gr with battery).

 

[El Diablo]

I was certified when I was 16, in 1970. I lived in Southern California and was an active shore diver in LA, Orange, and San Diego counties for 10 years, with an occasional ferry trip to Catalina. My mother bought me scuba gear for my high school graduation in 1972, MK5/109... I was an undergraduate at UCSD in La Jolla, what a great place to dive. Diving was inexpensive for me.

Then I got married, moved to Oregon, started a family... I did not dive for 17 years, until my son turned 12 and wanted to dive. My wife got certified when my daughter turned 12.

My wife and I worked hard and the family could afford dive equipment and a good dive vacation for a couple of weeks once or twice a year. Now, we're both retired and the kids are long out of the house and independent. We've had a townhouse in SE Florida for over a decade, my local diving. My wife and I take one or two dive vacations a year and I do some more adventuresome stuff myself.

Diving started out for me as both location and expense related. It was not until much later that I could afford the more expensive side of diving. Who knows, if it were not for my early experience, I may never have become a diver, rather than having 2,167 dives since 1997

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Bonaire, October 2019

RESPECT

 

[El Diablo]

Yes and no,,, I think...

There is an other thread talking about how people afford the expense of diving like travel and trimix etc.
And most seem to save and budget for trips and gear.

Finances and Tec Diving

Just curious: How do you balance your finances with as costly a hobby as tec diving? Do you set up a yearly “diving budget” and try to stick to it? Or do you go with the flow and sign up for trips, courses, etc. so long as your credit card limit would allow it? Obviously the first option...

scubaboard.com

Some people budget and don't do all the things like,
eat out, drink beer, buy coffee,
have new cars, boats, new electronics and phones, travel, cable, etc ....

I always been interested in RC planes and drones etc, its become very cheap..
Yet it really is expensive,,, because one is never enough... and all the extras add up.

It death by a thousand small cuts,

I have alot of interests and hobbies and as much as I would want to do other hobbies I can't do them all.

Just a little 'interference'... droning is also one of my hobbies. Upgraded to the MP3(from MP2 and Mini) this year, NOT cheap definitely. Add DJI Care and the mandatory insurance in DE and its already as expensive as a very good set of dive gear. Location also play a factor as flying over public places and roads isn't allowed so I need to go to the countryside or mountains to do so...

 

[Angelo Farina]

Cost is not such an important factor as there are many hobbies much more expensive. than diving.

That's true.
But if you look at the number of beginners in those all other sports or activities, such as offroad motorbikes, offroad bicycles, downhill, parachuting, parafly, alpine ski, water ski, windsurf, kayak, horse riding, etc., you see that all of them are declining, year after year.
Most people nowadays are not attracted by these outdoor activities, involving some risk, requiring proper training and skillness, and some decent physical fitness. These have been replaced by videogames, social networks, and more "soft" real-world hobbies such as photo, video making, sound recording, playing music, drama theater, etc.
It is a cultural shift, and I do not see any way to bring back the world.