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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:14PM
A guy with a serious guitar hobby, like a golfer or a bicyclist, tends to buy thousands of dollars of equipment of their lifetime.
A quitter will take that $150 guitar and sell it, then turn to video games.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:48PM
Yup. I knew when I was 17 that I was no John Entwhistle or Jack Cassidy, but I still play my old Gibson EB-3 and other basses in impromptu settings. Over the years I added a Fender, a Rick, and god only knows how many amps, mixers, and pedal gadgets.