The one thing RS did that I hated at the time, but which I now think was a stroke of genius, was to move components off the pegs and into drawers. The storage efficiency increased tenfold without compromising their parts inventory. Although it appeared at the outset to be a deemphasis of their parts business -- and it was, I'm sure -- they could simply have said "screw it" instead and dumped the parts line altogether. But they did not, and I'm glad. Plus, having done so would have made a seque into the "maker" market nearly impossible.
-Phil
At the time they did this, some RS locations did drop the components altogether. The one in Maplewood Mall has poor parts inventory, while the one in Stillwater is great.
There were also the Forrest M Mims III books which got a lot of people started in electronics.
RS has picked up several of Forrest's books, published by my old pals at Master Publishing outside Cha-caa-go. They're not as inexpensive as they were back in the late 70s and 80s, and each contains several of the mini books Forrest published on his own, but at least they're available.
As far as I can figure, Radio Shack has a franchise culture where the franchise owners expect the corporate HQ to come up with a scheme that with provide them with high-markup, high volume items as their bread and butter.
But the world of hobby electronics is not solely high-markup, high volume items.
Radio Shack does have 'the back corner' where we all go to get the items that are low-markup, often slow moving, and rahter complex to inventory. But we have all run the gauntlet through the front of the store where the 'other stuff' is. And we have many times visited multiple Radio Shacks to find that none have managed to restock 'the back corner' with what we currently need.
Occasionally, there is the remarkable RS proprietor that makes the hobbyist feel welcome, but a lot do not.
Let's face it, those low-markup items have been considered 'a necessary evil' by Radio Shack in order to create foot traffic. Every retail venture has some of this. But for true electronic hobbyist, they depend on these items to pursue their hobby and they often ignore the high markup side of Radio Shack. If they want to spend 'real money', they tend to be very rigours shoppers and want to get the right quality and value -- not be sold a product that almost fits, but is branded Radio Shack.
What I am describing is my own 'love/hate' relationship with Radio Shack over the years. I have never bought a TV, a major computer, a telephone, or a cell phone from them. I did buy a Color computer at one time, but soon up-graded to a real IBM clone bought else where.
I am not sure what Radio Shack will do. Either it has to find yet another high mark-up product line to feed the franchise expectations, or it really has to re-educate the franchises to fully service the hobby sector and find a way to keep up with a very rapidly changing market of hobby items (due to the internet and individual creativity). Neither is easy to do.
The problem with the high mark-up side of Radio Shack has been that other competitive outlets pop-up like mushrooms and often with more choice, and often without the burden of franchise owners and their expectations.
Radio Shack is an interesting business model, but I never quite know what it will be doing next.
As for Forest Mim, he has a new beginneers text in electronics. I'd love to get a copy and I'd really be happy to see it translated to Chinese for a couple of kids here. But there I go, I generally want something that RS will not pursue.
Here in the UK they had to trade as Tandy, because there was a well-known amateur radio outlet called Radio Shack. Most towns had a Tandy store, run as a franchise, and my first desk-top computer was a TRS-80 Model I.
Our local RS has the mandatory 4 parts cabinets and a couple racks of tools, supplies, misc. No Parallax or Arduino at my store last time I checked.
Hacker Shack (probably can't use Maker Shack since it's too close to Maker Shed):
A laser cutter and 3D printer I can send files to and then go pick up the parts...like you can send .jpgs to places and pick up prints or go into OfficeMax/Depot/Staples and get copies made and reports bound.
More parts...do you REALLY want 4 LEDs when they only have 2 in the parts bin?
Better prices - they're convenience factor doesn't overcome they're markup in most cases. I'll wait the 3 days to mail order. (or my OVERNIGHT deliveries from PropellerPowered!) Yes, I understand the retail burden - been there, done that.
More kits, shields, capes, boards, etc.
Support for a Hacker/maker group. Hosting meetings, etc.
Education outreach - get into the schools and grab the attention of the kids. Host project weekends, kid's clubs.
Demos....oops, that would require a sales person that knew something other than cell phones and HDTV.
Robot parts - life isn't always electrical.....sometimes it's physical!
Heh, our local radio shack knows me well. When we come in, it's no longer "Hello, how can we help you today." but more like "Oh, what do you need today.
The person who is usually in there isn't opposed to opening things so I can tell if it's what I need or not, but I think she doesn't like doing it.
I almost always get the impression of helpful, but if she could avoid waiting on me, she would. Of course, being the only person in the store, it's kind of too bad.
After I find what I'm looking for though, she usually gets quite happy, and is perfectly willing to ring up the sale, with a quick "Come back" after all is done. I'm convinced she feels uncomfortable, because, 1, no clue how to relate to a blind guy, and 2, doesn't like not knowing what I'm after most of the time, it takes explanations, and some part number reciting at times to get what I want. Not always mind you, she's nice enough, but I just think I don't fit into her comfortable classifications of customers, so she doesn't know how to act when I'm present.
Kind of amusing really.
The folks in Colonial Heights are much better, possibly because it's a larger store, has more employees, and severs a larger community, those folks tend to be ore open, and have very little trouble working with me to find what I'm after, even if they don't always know what it is I want.
But, since they ae one of the stores with parallax products, I try to get in there as often as I can, which sadly isn't more than once a month on a good month. <sigh>
@softcon
Your experiences are somewhat similar to me buying parts locally as the sales help is not well educated in even the best of local parts store. And then there is the fact that they really don't speak much English and that I seem to request things that do exist, but they never heard of.
Normal people just don't read PDFs on electronic parts for recreation.
After reading and thinking about Ken's thread about moderation and civility on the forum I thought I'd take a few seconds to "revise and extend" my comments about Radio Shack.
Like a lot of people here I'm saddened by the direction that Radio Shack has taken. Sadly the market for electronic components has changed and this can be evidenced by all but one local electronics stores (and it's hanging on by a fraying thread) in the Chicago area has closed down and I think that Radio Shack is just trying to find a way to survive.
Personally (and I think most of us here) hope that Radio Shack does find a way to survive and that the renew interest in hobby electronics, microcontrollers and robotics changes that.
I used to love going to RS back when they used to sell kits, etc. When I was a kid in the '70s I remember riding my bike miles to go to the local RS just to look. Sadly that changed when they decided to become a computer store and then a cell phone store.
@Bean I feel your pain about the high pressure cell phone sales. The last time I went to an RS I was met at the door by someone trying to convince me to buy a cell phone. I explained that I had a cell phone and a contract. The sales person insisted that I sell the phone and pay off the contract I had so I could buy a phone from him. Never had a chance and I turned and walked out.
In the years after the TRS-80 model 100 came out in 1983, it became wildly popular. When turned on the cursor came up on top of BASIC. The machine spawned a lively aftermarket of 3rd party application developers, publications and education programs. What is more, the service manual was readily available, and clever people soon decoded the entire ROM function map and operating system, so it was essentially open source with tacit blessing of the company. Who could complain about so much user community enthusiasm? Well, some companies would. Not Tandy in that instance. I was a grad student at the time and we quickly adopted the M100 for weather monitoring in orchards, networked to the campus computer via the built-in 300 baud dial-up modem. Later on I started my company to capitalize on that and came out with hardware add-ons for data logging and for memory and program expansion. When the M102 met its end, I tried a few other processors, but came around to the BASIC Stamp 2 because of the great open support and the attitude of Parallax as a company.
I keep getting a deja vu feeling that this is all like "Death of a Salesman".
It is certainly not that Radio Shack didn't have its great moments. It is that they cannot survive on perf board, caps and resistors. It is all rather scary that the past 30 years of technology have changed so many things that people imagined were here to stay. Gone are the typewritters, calculators are near obsolete, the iPad helped pirate the past 70 years of tunes - so Sony is near death, bank branches have franchised cleaners as they no longer have tellers, people are replaced by robots on a regular basis, retail used book stores are gone as you can buy from a warehouse in Reno via the web, and so on. Downsize seems to be the common theme in all these innovations.
Today, the local newpaper had a rather glorious article about a Frenchman that has developed a vinyard robot to prune grape vines. His words were 'Why bother with employees? Robots are much better - they work both days and nights and seven days a week.'
In concept, I love this robot. It is very creative and he did spend 3 years developing it just because there was a shortage of people that wanted the work. But we don't all own vineyards. What happens to the poor countries of the world when someone finally produces a robot that correctly picks coffee beans?
This economic downturn is having to address some very large questions in how people are going to foward, hold together as families, and so on.
BTW, I had a TRS-80 with tape cassette storage of programs. The Propeller can do so much more. We are changing faster than ever.
It is all rather scary that the past 30 years of technology have changed so many things that people imagined were here to stay.
I had exactly that disturbing thought last week when visiting Dublin, it hit me when I noticed they still have working public telephone boxes in the streets. Last one I saw around here was about 6 years ago on the day it was being removed. It sent a shiver through me that there are so many familiar objects that have disappeared from our lives. Or perhaps the realization was that I'm just getting old.
On the other hand, my father was born in 1914 in a world where no one had electricity, phones, tv, radio, mains water supply, cars and so on, there were no aeroplanes to speak of etc etc. All those things that we have enjoyed our whole lives had yet to arrive. Yet when in his 70's he was asked about the changes in his life he explained that by the time he was a young man all those things were in use, perhaps only by the wealthy but conceptually they were common knowledge, over time they got better, faster, smaller but he did not suffer from "Future Shock". In retirement he bought his first computer, a TRS80, and started teaching himself to program in BASIC like millions of teenagers were doing at the time.
Am I having "future shock" because of the rapid rate at which things are disappearing rather than the rate they are appearing?
future shock
1. Shattering stress and disorientation caused by the rapid rate of change in technology and society. 2. A book by Alvin Toffler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is..."
and:
"I'd like to capitalize on the store's strong points, but I honestly don't know what they are,"
and
"I once went into a RadioShack location incognito in order to gauge customer service, it was about as inviting as a visit to the DMV. For the life of me, I couldn't see anything I wanted to buy."
Seems there's been a few guys at the top since then and none of them made any more progress than that.
As an oldie I like the "Radio Shack" name but I can see youngsters of today have no way to relate to that. Perhaps rename it "Wireless Lounge", install comfy sofa's, offer free WIFI and coffee and surround the visitors with interesting and weird gadgets to buy.
I keep getting a deja vu feeling that this is all like "Death of a Salesman".
It is certainly not that Radio Shack didn't have its great moments. It is that they cannot survive on perf board, caps and resistors. It is all rather scary that the past 30 years of technology have changed so many things that people imagined were here to stay. Gone are the typewritters, calculators are near obsolete, the iPad helped pirate the past 70 years of tunes - so Sony is near death, bank branches have franchised cleaners as they no longer have tellers, people are replaced by robots on a regular basis, retail used book stores are gone as you can buy from a warehouse in Reno via the web, and so on. Downsize seems to be the common theme in all these innovations.
Today, the local newpaper had a rather glorious article about a Frenchman that has developed a vinyard robot to prune grape vines. His words were 'Why bother with employees? Robots are much better - they work both days and nights and seven days a week.'
In concept, I love this robot. It is very creative and he did spend 3 years developing it just because there was a shortage of people that wanted the work. But we don't all own vineyards. What happens to the poor countries of the world when someone finally produces a robot that correctly picks coffee beans?
This economic downturn is having to address some very large questions in how people are going to foward, hold together as families, and so on.
BTW, I had a TRS-80 with tape cassette storage of programs. The Propeller can do so much more. We are changing faster than ever.
I have been having similar concerns for a while. I was thinking of posting something in the "What's so great about America" thread along this same line. While there are a lot of positive things about America and the western world in general there are also problems.
What happens to us as a society when we can produce more than enough for everyone, but the means of production are in the hands of a wealthy few, and the majority of people have no jobs, so cannot afford what is produced. I think our current problems are the result of us now entering that stage, and our leaders have not only failed to address those issues, they are not even aware of them.
I am concerned about the future, not so much for myself, but for my children and their children. Our political, financial, and social systems are not set up to deal with this in any manner as they are currently.
the RS I had in cedar falls was AMAZING .. the people there were not gonna shove a phone down my throat /
Ken . You need to Rule the world ..
IMO the one part I want to see burn is the phone section .
if that was gone So much more floor space would be useful for other stuff
I too was Started on Forrest Mimms Books . Heck One day I called him and just thanked him for inspiring me to get in to my Dreams .
Heh 20 Years .... 2 Decades ! ago I got my first 100 in one kit...... I made a VCO in bed and made it change Freq with the CDS cell ..
man I can "smell " that Old place right now... the must of tandy and realistic branded stuff .....
What happens to us as a society when we can produce more than enough for everyone, but the means of production are in the hands of a wealthy few, and the majority of people have no jobs, so cannot afford what is produced
That has been bugging me from a long time as well. Here are some thoughts:
Perhaps this comes to some kind of balance. Investing in automation for cheap mass production require significant investment. If the wealthy few end up with the means of production, all automated and requiring few workers, then the unemployed majority cannot buy the products, which means there are no customers which means there is no money comming in, which means the production cannot be supported.
On the other hand, hasn't that been the way of the world for a long time? I mean the western world has basically owned or controlled a lot of the worlds resources and enjoyed a relatively opulent life style with all the luxuries we have taken for granted. Meanwhile, outside of that "wealthy few", huge populations in India, China, Aftrica, Asia, South America have owned nothing much and lived in relative poverty scratching around on the land.
Sadly we are about to experience what happens when control moves away from "us" to "them". Perhaps the balance of which I speak requires our living standards to take a dive whilst theirs comes up a bit. It's going to hurt.
Don't forget the you yourself are one of the "wealthy few" in the global scale of things.
What happens to us as a society when we can produce more than enough for everyone, but the means of production are in the hands of a wealthy few, and the majority of people have no jobs, so cannot afford what is produced. I think our current problems are the result of us now entering that stage, and our leaders have not only failed to address those issues, they are not even aware of them.
I am concerned about the future, not so much for myself, but for my children and their children. Our political, financial, and social systems are not set up to deal with this in any manner as they are currently.
You create opiates for the masses (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to help them consume any possible extra income by marketing products and services they don't need but want due to peer pressure they also end up consuming any productive time they may have. You use these same opiates to force thought and behavior through peer pressure and crowd dynamics. Soon, the majority doesn't know any better and are happy if you tell them they are. The minority that don't fall for it are a small, politically ineffective group that can be dealt with.
Sounds like you have just explained the relentless rise and onslaught of advertising in recent decades. Yes the technology has enabled it via tracking, profiling and delivery on the internet and the barage of flatscreens flashing at you in every city street and shopping mall. But perhaps what has happened is that there are more and more people with less and less to spend so marketeers have to try harder and harder to scrape the barrel.
P.S. Being constantly surrounded by big flat screens trying to sell me stuff everywhere I go, on the bus, on the train, in the airport, in every street and restaurant etc is starting to really anoy me. It was bad enough when it was just on the TV commercials on those rare occasions I watch TV but this is driving me crazy as there is no escape. I can't help thinking I need a shot gun every time I step out of the house. This is not healthy.
Sounds like you have just explained the relentless rise and onslaught of advertising in recent decades. Yes the technology has enabled it via tracking, profiling and delivery on the internet and the barage of flatscreens flashing at you in every city street and shopping mall. But perhaps what has happened is that there are more and more people with less and less to spend so marketeers have to try harder and harder to scrape the barrel.
P.S. Being constantly surrounded by big flat screens trying to sell me stuff everywhere I go, on the bus, on the train, in the airport, in every street and restaurant etc is starting to really anoy me. It was bad enough when it was just on the TV commercials on those rare occasions I watch TV but this is driving me crazy as there is no escape. I can't help thinking I need a shot gun every time I step out of the house. This is not healthy.
Couldn't agree more with both points. I went without TV at home for about a year and a half, but finally purchased one a couple of months back. Took about a week for me to wonder why I bothered. It is probably turned on for about 2 hours a week. The idiotic commercials just drive me to turn it off. Now the internet seems to be getting just as bad.
Don't the advertisers realize most people have developed immunity to their B$?
Comments
RS has picked up several of Forrest's books, published by my old pals at Master Publishing outside Cha-caa-go. They're not as inexpensive as they were back in the late 70s and 80s, and each contains several of the mini books Forrest published on his own, but at least they're available.
-- Gordon
But the world of hobby electronics is not solely high-markup, high volume items.
Radio Shack does have 'the back corner' where we all go to get the items that are low-markup, often slow moving, and rahter complex to inventory. But we have all run the gauntlet through the front of the store where the 'other stuff' is. And we have many times visited multiple Radio Shacks to find that none have managed to restock 'the back corner' with what we currently need.
Occasionally, there is the remarkable RS proprietor that makes the hobbyist feel welcome, but a lot do not.
Let's face it, those low-markup items have been considered 'a necessary evil' by Radio Shack in order to create foot traffic. Every retail venture has some of this. But for true electronic hobbyist, they depend on these items to pursue their hobby and they often ignore the high markup side of Radio Shack. If they want to spend 'real money', they tend to be very rigours shoppers and want to get the right quality and value -- not be sold a product that almost fits, but is branded Radio Shack.
What I am describing is my own 'love/hate' relationship with Radio Shack over the years. I have never bought a TV, a major computer, a telephone, or a cell phone from them. I did buy a Color computer at one time, but soon up-graded to a real IBM clone bought else where.
I am not sure what Radio Shack will do. Either it has to find yet another high mark-up product line to feed the franchise expectations, or it really has to re-educate the franchises to fully service the hobby sector and find a way to keep up with a very rapidly changing market of hobby items (due to the internet and individual creativity). Neither is easy to do.
The problem with the high mark-up side of Radio Shack has been that other competitive outlets pop-up like mushrooms and often with more choice, and often without the burden of franchise owners and their expectations.
Radio Shack is an interesting business model, but I never quite know what it will be doing next.
As for Forest Mim, he has a new beginneers text in electronics. I'd love to get a copy and I'd really be happy to see it translated to Chinese for a couple of kids here. But there I go, I generally want something that RS will not pursue.
If you were given the job of creating a Maker / Hacker space in a radio shack what would you want to see in it to get you to buy from them.
The Radio Shack by me has the usually 4 cabinets of parts an about 3 ft of rack for the Parallax Arduino stuff.
Hacker Shack (probably can't use Maker Shack since it's too close to Maker Shed):
A laser cutter and 3D printer I can send files to and then go pick up the parts...like you can send .jpgs to places and pick up prints or go into OfficeMax/Depot/Staples and get copies made and reports bound.
More parts...do you REALLY want 4 LEDs when they only have 2 in the parts bin?
Better prices - they're convenience factor doesn't overcome they're markup in most cases. I'll wait the 3 days to mail order. (or my OVERNIGHT deliveries from PropellerPowered!) Yes, I understand the retail burden - been there, done that.
More kits, shields, capes, boards, etc.
Support for a Hacker/maker group. Hosting meetings, etc.
Education outreach - get into the schools and grab the attention of the kids. Host project weekends, kid's clubs.
Demos....oops, that would require a sales person that knew something other than cell phones and HDTV.
Robot parts - life isn't always electrical.....sometimes it's physical!
The person who is usually in there isn't opposed to opening things so I can tell if it's what I need or not, but I think she doesn't like doing it.
I almost always get the impression of helpful, but if she could avoid waiting on me, she would. Of course, being the only person in the store, it's kind of too bad.
After I find what I'm looking for though, she usually gets quite happy, and is perfectly willing to ring up the sale, with a quick "Come back" after all is done. I'm convinced she feels uncomfortable, because, 1, no clue how to relate to a blind guy, and 2, doesn't like not knowing what I'm after most of the time, it takes explanations, and some part number reciting at times to get what I want. Not always mind you, she's nice enough, but I just think I don't fit into her comfortable classifications of customers, so she doesn't know how to act when I'm present.
Kind of amusing really.
The folks in Colonial Heights are much better, possibly because it's a larger store, has more employees, and severs a larger community, those folks tend to be ore open, and have very little trouble working with me to find what I'm after, even if they don't always know what it is I want.
But, since they ae one of the stores with parallax products, I try to get in there as often as I can, which sadly isn't more than once a month on a good month. <sigh>
Your experiences are somewhat similar to me buying parts locally as the sales help is not well educated in even the best of local parts store. And then there is the fact that they really don't speak much English and that I seem to request things that do exist, but they never heard of.
Normal people just don't read PDFs on electronic parts for recreation.
Like a lot of people here I'm saddened by the direction that Radio Shack has taken. Sadly the market for electronic components has changed and this can be evidenced by all but one local electronics stores (and it's hanging on by a fraying thread) in the Chicago area has closed down and I think that Radio Shack is just trying to find a way to survive.
Personally (and I think most of us here) hope that Radio Shack does find a way to survive and that the renew interest in hobby electronics, microcontrollers and robotics changes that.
It is certainly not that Radio Shack didn't have its great moments. It is that they cannot survive on perf board, caps and resistors. It is all rather scary that the past 30 years of technology have changed so many things that people imagined were here to stay. Gone are the typewritters, calculators are near obsolete, the iPad helped pirate the past 70 years of tunes - so Sony is near death, bank branches have franchised cleaners as they no longer have tellers, people are replaced by robots on a regular basis, retail used book stores are gone as you can buy from a warehouse in Reno via the web, and so on. Downsize seems to be the common theme in all these innovations.
Today, the local newpaper had a rather glorious article about a Frenchman that has developed a vinyard robot to prune grape vines. His words were 'Why bother with employees? Robots are much better - they work both days and nights and seven days a week.'
In concept, I love this robot. It is very creative and he did spend 3 years developing it just because there was a shortage of people that wanted the work. But we don't all own vineyards. What happens to the poor countries of the world when someone finally produces a robot that correctly picks coffee beans?
This economic downturn is having to address some very large questions in how people are going to foward, hold together as families, and so on.
BTW, I had a TRS-80 with tape cassette storage of programs. The Propeller can do so much more. We are changing faster than ever.
I had exactly that disturbing thought last week when visiting Dublin, it hit me when I noticed they still have working public telephone boxes in the streets. Last one I saw around here was about 6 years ago on the day it was being removed. It sent a shiver through me that there are so many familiar objects that have disappeared from our lives. Or perhaps the realization was that I'm just getting old.
On the other hand, my father was born in 1914 in a world where no one had electricity, phones, tv, radio, mains water supply, cars and so on, there were no aeroplanes to speak of etc etc. All those things that we have enjoyed our whole lives had yet to arrive. Yet when in his 70's he was asked about the changes in his life he explained that by the time he was a young man all those things were in use, perhaps only by the wealthy but conceptually they were common knowledge, over time they got better, faster, smaller but he did not suffer from "Future Shock". In retirement he bought his first computer, a TRS80, and started teaching himself to program in BASIC like millions of teenagers were doing at the time.
Am I having "future shock" because of the rapid rate at which things are disappearing rather than the rate they are appearing?
future shock
1. Shattering stress and disorientation caused by the rapid rate of change in technology and society.
2. A book by Alvin Toffler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is..."
and:
"I'd like to capitalize on the store's strong points, but I honestly don't know what they are,"
and
"I once went into a RadioShack location incognito in order to gauge customer service, it was about as inviting as a visit to the DMV. For the life of me, I couldn't see anything I wanted to buy."
Seems there's been a few guys at the top since then and none of them made any more progress than that.
As an oldie I like the "Radio Shack" name but I can see youngsters of today have no way to relate to that. Perhaps rename it "Wireless Lounge", install comfy sofa's, offer free WIFI and coffee and surround the visitors with interesting and weird gadgets to buy.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/even-ceo-cant-figure-out-how-radioshack-still-in-b,2190/?ref=auto
I have been having similar concerns for a while. I was thinking of posting something in the "What's so great about America" thread along this same line. While there are a lot of positive things about America and the western world in general there are also problems.
What happens to us as a society when we can produce more than enough for everyone, but the means of production are in the hands of a wealthy few, and the majority of people have no jobs, so cannot afford what is produced. I think our current problems are the result of us now entering that stage, and our leaders have not only failed to address those issues, they are not even aware of them.
I am concerned about the future, not so much for myself, but for my children and their children. Our political, financial, and social systems are not set up to deal with this in any manner as they are currently.
Ken . You need to Rule the world ..
IMO the one part I want to see burn is the phone section .
if that was gone So much more floor space would be useful for other stuff
I too was Started on Forrest Mimms Books . Heck One day I called him and just thanked him for inspiring me to get in to my Dreams .
Heh 20 Years .... 2 Decades ! ago I got my first 100 in one kit...... I made a VCO in bed and made it change Freq with the CDS cell ..
man I can "smell " that Old place right now... the must of tandy and realistic branded stuff .....
It seams like yesterday ...
That has been bugging me from a long time as well. Here are some thoughts:
Perhaps this comes to some kind of balance. Investing in automation for cheap mass production require significant investment. If the wealthy few end up with the means of production, all automated and requiring few workers, then the unemployed majority cannot buy the products, which means there are no customers which means there is no money comming in, which means the production cannot be supported.
On the other hand, hasn't that been the way of the world for a long time? I mean the western world has basically owned or controlled a lot of the worlds resources and enjoyed a relatively opulent life style with all the luxuries we have taken for granted. Meanwhile, outside of that "wealthy few", huge populations in India, China, Aftrica, Asia, South America have owned nothing much and lived in relative poverty scratching around on the land.
Sadly we are about to experience what happens when control moves away from "us" to "them". Perhaps the balance of which I speak requires our living standards to take a dive whilst theirs comes up a bit. It's going to hurt.
Don't forget the you yourself are one of the "wealthy few" in the global scale of things.
You create opiates for the masses (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to help them consume any possible extra income by marketing products and services they don't need but want due to peer pressure they also end up consuming any productive time they may have. You use these same opiates to force thought and behavior through peer pressure and crowd dynamics. Soon, the majority doesn't know any better and are happy if you tell them they are. The minority that don't fall for it are a small, politically ineffective group that can be dealt with.
Sounds like you have just explained the relentless rise and onslaught of advertising in recent decades. Yes the technology has enabled it via tracking, profiling and delivery on the internet and the barage of flatscreens flashing at you in every city street and shopping mall. But perhaps what has happened is that there are more and more people with less and less to spend so marketeers have to try harder and harder to scrape the barrel.
P.S. Being constantly surrounded by big flat screens trying to sell me stuff everywhere I go, on the bus, on the train, in the airport, in every street and restaurant etc is starting to really anoy me. It was bad enough when it was just on the TV commercials on those rare occasions I watch TV but this is driving me crazy as there is no escape. I can't help thinking I need a shot gun every time I step out of the house. This is not healthy.
Couldn't agree more with both points. I went without TV at home for about a year and a half, but finally purchased one a couple of months back. Took about a week for me to wonder why I bothered. It is probably turned on for about 2 hours a week. The idiotic commercials just drive me to turn it off. Now the internet seems to be getting just as bad.
Don't the advertisers realize most people have developed immunity to their B$?