Calaverasgrande said:
Rebuttal in no particular order, I have no personal beef with Elixirs. They just happen to be the most expensive set of strings you can buy for a bass in a standard music store (sure you could get spirocore or something but I am talking about GC) As far as whether they hold their twang, I find tehm to not have very much twang to lose, but they do age slower than D'addarios or GHS.
No I do not like stores such as Target, Starbucks, Walmart etc. Capitalism is not a panacea and it didn't "win". Providin the best value is not what chain stores do. What they do is allow the corporation (an increasingly transational entity which is subject to no laws) the ability to defray losses in a competitiive market by raising their prices in less competitive ones. So Starbucks can move into a market, undercut the competition until they are out of business, then raise their prices to recoup losses. Mom and pops do not have the ability to copmoete in this manner. Most of them end up closing their bric and mortar presence and going online, either in a significant capacity like some of the examples cited above, or in a ebay fashion.
The idea that there is a natural justice to capitalism is unreasonable. This is like assuming there is a natural justice to fistfights.
Yes I do blame the consumer. Good mom and pop music retailers are often the best place to find a competent guitar/amp tech. And a good place to get advice. A store that has weathered several decades may just have a guy that knows what the difference between a 12ax7 and a 12at7. I would love to see any of you guys that stick up for GC take your axes in there to get them worked on. Or your amps!
1: I also prefer the Elixer strings. They work great with my main axe, a Warwick Corvette Std. 4. Takes a bit of the edge off of the instrument as opposed to the Warwick Black Labels I used to use.
2: You make it sound that if the Mom and Pop operation wouldn't do what the big corps do if their positions were reversed. Most big corps started as small mom and pop businesses.
Corps of all sizes are out to do one thing: Make money for their respective interested parties, weather they be shareholders or Mom and Pop socking away for a vacation to the Bahamas this year. There are a very few exceptions with people running businesses "because they love it", but these are VERY few and far between. In most things where you deal directly with the customer, there's simply not enough motivation to put up with the customer abuse and low margins to do it "for the love of it".
3: No one ever claimed that there was natural *JUSTICE* in the capitalist system. Just natural competition over the same resources, in this case customer dollars. The new player will (somewhat justifiably, IMO) reguard cost over all things, as typically, they aren't even shure if they're going to stick with the instrument. It's the second and third and (N) purchases that are going to be the ones that matter, and be considerably more profitable for those who get those dollars. This is where the smaller shops like Bass NW, the Bass Place, etc shine for those of us who are a little more discerning about what we want to use.
4: I agree about the tech and service thing. The Bass Place in Tempe AZ and Bass NW in Washington state are still in business partly because of their service and techs. Even with a Guitar Center in town.
To sum up: the big box store isn't the problem, it's just a (please not I did *NOT* say "the") solution to what the customer is asking for.
For any small, local store to survive, they're going to have to change something, weather it be the target clientel, the focus of their business, service/brand offerings, or some combination of these and/or other elements. They can't compete with the big box stores on cost, because they'll get crushed every time.
The small stores have several things going for them when competing against a big box store. Two of the primary advandages are flexibility and agility.
