I doubt that "commoditization" will ever become so thorough.

The thing that is so goofy that there are so many choices in other parts of the consumer space. Not that long ago I remodeled my kitchen and from appliances to tile to cabinets to lighting there are SO MANY choices and SUCH a range of prices. Same kind of thing with like digital cameras -- hundreds maybe thousands of lower end choices, huge range of options in the midrange, dozens of "pro-sumer" options, nice growth of true cameras, even some viable "luxury" brands. Expand the same analogy to vehicles and there are nearly infinite ways to sub-segment things: econo, compacts, sports, "green", sports, luxury, utility, performance, exotic, slice / dice / mix & match...

Yes, I get that vehicles and appliances are more necessity than luxury, but that has not stopped SO MANY of the "part" of those businesses from manufactures to distributors and retailers to find ways to target those segments. Even more lessons seem applicable to the camera analogy -- all kinds of QUALITY differences from "image" to "cachet" to "value".

Really seems like many of the failures in the A/V space lie with foolish retailers, distributors that were worse and many manufacturers with business models that have more holes than a colander...




Originally Posted By: Ritz2
Well, your average yahoo considers "live music" to be a very loud and electronically massaged performance by the Biebs or maybe an overdriven ear splitting Metallica concert that leaves your ears ringing for days (I used to be one of those...heh). Of the single digit percentage that have seen live chamber music or live jazz and can appreciate the subtleties therein, you've then got to weed out those folks who don't care or don't have the spare jingle to throw a couple of grand at the problem. That leaves a vanishingly small universe of consumers for niche "audiophile" companies to chase. While my kids think my audio systems have been "cool," they can't be bothered and seem quite content to listen to highly compressed music streamed from Youtube into a tiny pair of earbuds.

It won't be long before the actual hardware is commoditized even further and the differentiation offered by niche audiophile companies will be comprised almost entirely of software.