SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the while-my-guitar-gently-weeps dept.
Each holiday season, thousands of teenagers tear gift wrap off shiny, new guitars. They giddily pluck at the detuned strings, thinking how cool they'll be once they're rock stars—even if almost all will give up before they ever get to jam out to "Sweet Child o' Mine."
For them, it's no big deal to relegate the guitar to the back of the closet forever in favor of the Playstation controller. But it is a big deal for Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the 70-year-old maker of rock 'n' roll's most iconic electric guitars. Every quitter hurts.
[...]The $6 billion U.S. retail market for musical instruments has been stagnant for five years, according to data compiled by research firm IBISWorld, and would-be guitar buyers have more to distract them than ever. So how do you convince someone to put down the iPhone, pick up a Stratocaster, and keep playing?
Seems Fender didn't get the memo: the music of the future is hip-hop and autotuners.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Francis on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:26AM
If they didn't find my time, or any other worker's time valuable, they wouldn't be providing work.
I'm not really sure how that concept is so hard to understand. Jobs aren't created out of the goodness of the employers heart, they're provided because they want to profit off the work. Cases where an employer can't afford to pay a living wage for the work are few and far between. Those are mostly jobs that are marching towards either obsolescence or being off-shored, in neither case does that situation typically last indefinitely.
Pay people the money they've earned and problems like this go away. If people want to spend their free time pursuing the arts, they should be able to do so rather than become homeless because they're only working one job.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:42AM
C'mon, Francis! Man up!
I'm not really sure . . .
Be sure! Your opponents are Republicans (or, former Republican, maybe returning Republicans) with no real understanding of 1. economics, 2. social justice (obvious, since they mock people who believe in justice with their SJW shibboleth), and 3. art. So don't just say you don't know why they don't get it: they don't get it because they are idiots, morons, selfish libertarian inclined anti-social assholes! Make this clear to them! (Another helpful hint from your nemesis and greatest critic, ari.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:49AM
LOL, and you expect to be taken seriously.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:59AM
You think aristarchus wants to be taken seriously? Medic! Medic! Stat! AC with a hook imbedded in his cheek! Repeat: Medics please report! Trolling victim needs assistance!
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday November 24 2016, @05:36AM
Exactly.
"Cases where an employer can't afford to pay a living wage for the work are few and far between."
Depending on your definition of 'living wage' (assuming you have one, for many it's more of just a sound that stops thinking) that might be true. So what? Regardless of how many or how few they are, the question is simply whether they are better off being allowed to work and improve themselves, or whether you think it's better to mandate unemployment and welfare for them instead.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?