Why should I support my LDS?

[Thalassamania]

I wonder why people must post threads to justify where they spend their money?

LDS or online? It's your money to spend however you wish. I could care less about how you spend your money. I know how I want to spend my money and that's all I'm concerned with.

Because they want you and me to spend our money in ways that subsidize their needs.

 

[Deep South Divers]

I tried to do as good as I could. Even applied the advanced education model with it.

I got in a couple of dives with my buddyette in the entry level class. Being one that was wanting to learn more and gain experience. Told her that I wanted to swap buddies for a night dive. You know, running out of air and getting kicked in the stomach have a lot of similarities.

Being a fairly smart fellow, decided to learn from my mistakes. Figured, rescue would be a good direction to head. Wouldn't you know it, when I started trying to practice mouth to mouth and chest compressions with my partner. Unfortunatley, my regular buddyette found out. She started the kick again, never date a karate student, but I learned my lesson and she was off target. Unfortunately I tried to jump above her kick but she connected about 10 inches below my stomach. I learned what it would feel like if you did an uncontrolled descent into a sea urchin bed.

Ok, I'm not stupid. I learned my lesson. No more classes without my one and only buddyette. Thought I'd give this one more try. I did a deep and extended stay course. Finally, I hit on the right combo.

The other night, I suggested that maybe she might be interested in a tri-mix course. She must have gotten narced, got kinda wide eyed, started mumbling something about Lorainna Bobbit, my snorkle getting lost. Guess I will just stay where I'm at. No more classes for me.

Hahahahahaa...

 

[Narcd_dvr]

I tried to do as good as I could. Even applied the advanced education model with it.

I got in a couple of dives with my buddyette in the entry level class. Being one that was wanting to learn more and gain experience. Told her that I wanted to swap buddies for a night dive. You know, running out of air and getting kicked in the stomach have a lot of similarities.

Being a fairly smart fellow, decided to learn from my mistakes. Figured, rescue would be a good direction to head. Wouldn't you know it, when I started trying to practice mouth to mouth and chest compressions with my partner. Unfortunatley, my regular buddyette found out. She started the kick again, never date a karate student, but I learned my lesson and she was off target. Unfortunately I tried to jump above her kick but she connected about 10 inches below my stomach. I learned what it would feel like if you did an uncontrolled descent into a sea urchin bed.

Ok, I'm not stupid. I learned my lesson. No more classes without my one and only buddyette. Thought I'd give this one more try. I did a deep and extended stay course. Finally, I hit on the right combo.

The other night, I suggested that maybe she might be interested in a tri-mix course. She must have gotten narced, got kinda wide eyed, started mumbling something about Lorainna Bobbit, my snorkle getting lost. Guess I will just stay where I'm at. No more classes for me.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Hardly, being based in Mallorca I wouldn't call LP competition as a matter of fact with the prices over here I wish the were here too As I recall LP was selling knock off SP BC's as SP not a different brand, I never heard that they were coming from the same production line so that was the point I was making.

Actually, the point you were making is that they were defective. Were they? What was the nature of the failure?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Splitlip]

Buy the required hardware and go to your local fire dept.

Maybe in Hotterville or Mayberry, but in more cosmopolitan destinations such as South Florida, unless you have official business or are in need of refuge, you won't even get access to a station. Post 911 security concerns.

And the thought of a civilian using fill stations for his personal use would give any risk manager a panic attack. LOL

 

[Thalassamania]

In three different locations now I have volunteered to help keep the FD's bottles filled, and they've never minded if I filled my bottles also (well, actually 4 ... but one used an LDS for fills).

 

[Splitlip]

Was one of the locations Hootersville?

I assure you, it won't happen here. I've held management/director postions with two South Florida Counties. I'm a former (volunteer) fire fighter and I've built Fire Stations for Palm Beach County. I cannot get a tank filled, so I suspect the other 10,000 divers are pretty much SOL. And, officially, a full time a fire fighter is prohibited from filling his personal tanks. (unauthorized use of County owned facilities)

And like the yellow line at the oil change place that says "no public beyond this point, insurance regulation", the only outside person filling tanks will be a vendor who has been selected under the approriate CCNA or JOC or what ever State sanctioned competitive selection process. (with the appropriate surety, risk and and general liability of course.) LOL

 

[tregrrr]

If scuba gear were truly "life support" equipment, there would be a lot of dead divers around. And the sale and servicing of this gear would have so much liability attached to it that it would certainly take a license, issued by a government agency, just like being a medical doctor. A heart/lung machine is "life support." A scuba regulator is a piece of recreational gear.

...

Can you see how a space suit provides "life support" to an astronaut? In space, it is completely hostile to human existence right?? In a sub-marine environment, until we develop viable gills or some other method of O₂/CO₂ exchange, that too is completely hostile to humans. Have a look at the definition given by Oxford dictionary for LIFE SUPPORT:

AskOxford: life support
• noun _Medicine maintenance of vital functions following disablement or in an adverse environment.

I trust that the concise version is adequate??

try diving without 'life support' equipment. It's called freediving. It can also be a fairly direct route to dying, if you started the dive with and ended without the aforementioned equipment.



No we shouldn't have to pay through the nose just because it is 'life-supporting' equipment, but the economists among us (pointing at the guy who writes REALLY REALLY long posts) have explained the supply and demand paradigm shift already. This label is just another marketing component aimed at creating as much Percieved value possible for the inflated priced product 'they' are selling.

think about it this way: if you think less of your gear, you are willing to pay less for it since in your eyes it just is not worth that much. If, however, the supply side of the equation applies (and the demand side concurrs or accepts) the haughty connotations associated with the label "life support" then BINGO they have created more value in the eyes of the consumer and thus increased the price at which people are willing to purchase.

More Percieved Value issue were brought up:

Shall we say counterfeit then? Although if it's from the same factory it wouldn't be but I am guessing it was more than one or two of them so we can defintiely say illegal and dishonest

ITS VERY SIMPLE:

Ask Coach or Gucci what one of their $1000 purses costs to manufacture, distribute and market -- Rhetorical question since there is no way anyone will let that gem slip officially. Basically, because as society is willing to pay more, each level of the supply infrastructure is able and willing to take more of a profit margin.

What are we willing to pay for?? That's called Perceived Value. If we see more value (in our own eyes) than the price a vendor is asking for a product, we buy. If not, we keep looking. In the issue above, we as a consumer society are apparently willing to pay a lot for a name.

In the current LDS model it is the Manufacturer (whose good name and reputation we are in buying) is responsible to replace defective merchandise. In their absence, due to anti-competitive policies by the manufacturers (no onlinie sales), we still still get covered, only the vendor budgets to pay for replacement as a cost of doing business. EITHER WAY WE ALL PAY A FRACTION FOR THE DEFECTIVE ITEM ON EVERY GOOD ITEM WE BUY; the only difference is whose margin it comes out of.

Unlike automotive dealership arrangements for warranty work, there is no way for the LDS to get paid for fixing Warranty claims. The only current benefit to a LDS for fixing a warranty claim in house is avoid the cost of shipping, and to have a happy customer now, instead of a disgruntled one waiting for the factory to act. It is possible that the LDS goes as far as to provide a replacement out of their own stock (if available), one attitude/practice which might possibly put them among the LDS who will survive.

It is a sad fact, but globalization is taking over. There are going to be LDS's closing up shop everywhere. Not all LDS are going to go away, but the ones who do not embrace change and continue to sit back and lament "how things were in the old days...". Yeah we unfortunately are going to loose the benefit of their experience. Yes it was how things used to be done, BUT TIMES ARE CHANGING. Paradigm shift is just an pretty, clean, an civilized economics term that means a whole lot of tree shaking is coming up. Lots and Lots. It is quite conceivable that we wont recognize the future LDS. What we can be assured of though is this:

THE LDS WHO SURVIVE WILL BE THE ONES THAT CHANGE IN ORDER TO BEST ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF THEIR CUSTOMERS, NOT THE ONES WHO EXPECT THEIR CUSTOMERS TO ADDRESS THEIR NEEDS.

I missed making an m-quote on the post about the guy who services and compresses. 8$ fills and service for regs no matter where/who sold them. No BellyAching about online sales... that guy, despite having been in the business for 30 years, is on the forefront of where our industry has to go.

I kind of think the future diveshop will be service and airfill centered. The margin is gone on gear sales and the longer it takes an individual LDS to concede that point, the worse off it will be as they then play catch-up to the shops who embrace it early on. I can see distributors having to get more involved with the individual, possibly hiring more phone flunkies to field questions, but the biggest winners in the whole shift are going to be UPS and Visa.

Change is difficult for the vast majority of human beings to accept much less embrace.

Difficult but inevitable none the less.

 

[redacted]

Can you see how a space suit provides "life support" to an astronaut? In space, it is completely hostile to human existence right?? In a sub-marine environment, until we develop viable gills or some other method of O₂/CO₂ exchange, that too is completely hostile to humans. Have a look at the definition given by Oxford dictionary for LIFE SUPPORT:

I trust that the concise version is adequate??

Here is the problem. If a regulator is life support and life support is essential to prevent death, why don't divers die when their regulator fails???

 

[Sas]

Can you see how a space suit provides "life support" to an astronaut? In space, it is completely hostile to human existence right?? In a sub-marine environment, until we develop viable gills or some other method of O₂/CO₂ exchange, that too is completely hostile to humans. Have a look at the definition given by Oxford dictionary for LIFE SUPPORT:

That is a terrible analogy. In space there is no hospitable habitat you can get to easily if your equipment fails. In OW that is not the case - you can swim for the surface, which is doable in dives to recreational limits. In overhead, one carries redundancy, which should make it near impossible to be left without equipment that can get them back to OW and the surface, when used correctly.

As I said earlier, equipment failure in and of itself, does not cause people to die. It is one's response to this equipment failure that kills one or not. If my reg stops working, there are MANY options for me to take, in order to save my life.

Even in space I imagine they have redundancy up to the eye balls. But if it all fails, it is not comparable to the ocean.