Carolena
Guru
IMHO, Jeff has created an excellent product in ActiveCaptain, I enjoy seeing his posts here (in addition to his newsletter) and I hope he decides to stick around. Hearing different perspectives is how we educate ourselves.
IMHO, Jeff has created an excellent product in ActiveCaptain, I enjoy seeing his posts here (in addition to his newsletter) and I hope he decides to stick around. Hearing different perspectives is how we educate ourselves.
Jeff had more credibility to me when he owned his DeFever, lol.
Automated information aids like AC and the rest do eventually add to the cost of boating, and they eventually cost every boater, whether we use the aids or not.
...........When someone can only reflect on how good it used to be, well, that's your sign...
I don't speak about the good old times, i speak about now. I'm forced in a system that i not asked for but indirect also pay the bill for.
I'm almost a full time traveller, (Reiziger = Reysigher = Traveller) and on a daily basis see how wordlwide prices rice because middle-man offer services i don't ask for.
Talking about inappropriate comments...
Of course that's not true. It sort of misses the entire tech revolution over the last 40 years.
Technology at its best doesn't succeed because it's cool. It succeeds because it saves money. Every time.
So when businesses used to have 15 people in an accounts receivable department, it was an easy decision to automate the business practices allowing 5 people to handle the same workload. They didn't do it because they wanted a computer nearby. They did it because it saved money.
I'm personally involved with a particular marina that's spending 12 hours a week on a particular data collection they want for their own marketing. They deeply know what they're doing (I love the group) but the mechanism to collect the data didn't exist. Well, until now. By switching to Dockwa, they now get the data collection automatically. Put all the numbers together and it becomes a no-brainer to purchase the extra software - they save money by doing it.
Other marinas are spending many thousands of dollars a year on advertising. They really have no idea whether it works or not - many forms of advertising are like that. So along comes a tool like Dockwa and now they can use their advertising and get immediate feedback about whether it's working or not. Think that matters to them? They're probably not saving money - the cost of Dockwa is being taken from the traditional advertising budget. But the result is the same because they're making more money because it's more effective. That doesn't end up raising the rates to anyone.
I'm not defensive about these things. They're facts. It's the way tech works. To be doom and gloom about the future, changes, new ideas, or the potential to make things better is the sign of someone done with life. When someone can only reflect on how good it used to be, well, that's your sign...
But yet prices have risen at a slower rate the last ten years of your life than any other period of your life. You're seeing the world in the way it seems to be impacting you. However, that's not the world in general.
Technology at its best doesn't succeed because it's cool. It succeeds because it saves money. Every time.
Based on what data? I sure don't see it in the specialized segment of recreational boating. Yes, a slump in boat purchase prices, but that's only because boating taken on the whole has become prohibitively expensive.
Every measure you want to find. Just look up any chart of worldwide or US cost of living increases by year. Reiziger wasn't referring to just boating, but boating was always expensive and some aspects of it are up in cost and others not so.
Ah, the government cost of living numbers....right. Don't seem to see it in my personal expenditures....absolutely not in the discretionary recreational realm, where I think Reiziger was focused. That's what I was getting at when I asked about what measure....general, discretionary...that sort of breakout.
...........If I still lived where I did with the same boat I owned then, my costs wouldn't be up.
Jeff, I find it hard to imagine from your posts that you're not a discerning person when it comes to where your slip is.
A concept ESPN seemed to give little thought to when they chose to affiliate with the SEC. The backlash was huge.....I think a separation between the business booking and reputation management is important...
I hope this discussion waked some people that are using all these "gadgets" at the end all recreation boaters pay the costs of all this, Jeffrey for sure calls this progress.
I stay far away from all these and promise that i will NEVER use them. A big plus for OpenCPN that is still clean from such add-ons so i can still use it......
Till now my primairy brand was Garmin, because of their bussiness model i changed over to an other brand and believe me in the sailing community i am not the only one who think this way.
I want to see what choice of slips are available. Is there a spot on the transient floating dock? Can a get a slip within reach of a pump out station or maybe fuel? ... If I'm staying at a marina with an outside bar and maybe a band playing till midnight, I have no intentions of being slipped next to the night life. Guess my fear is the concept of all slips are the same in the software of Dockwa. Simply, if I'm paying $2+ per foot, I want a human to spend <5 minutes reserving me a slip that I will be happy with and my boat will fit into. If all they have is next to the band stand, then save us both the aggravation of me going there and then having to find some place else.
Still love Active Captain and appreciate most of your innovations.
If you choose the products you buy based on the manufacturer's "business model", rather than features, functionality and value, you are a fool............. Till now my primairy brand was Garmin, because of their bussiness model i changed over to an other brand and believe me in the sailing community i am not the only one who think this way.
If you choose the products you buy based on the manufacturer's "business model", rather than features, functionality and value, you are a fool.
Either that or you're just posting BS to impress someone.
Semi-I happen to find your comments more than "inappropriate", I find them offensive. It seems your chief complaint is that some of your favorite boating areas are now much busier than before, thus affecting your enjoyment of those areas. Somehow, that is the result of too much information easily getting into apparently undeserving hands through technology as represented by Jeff and AC. First, I don't recall Jeff ever saying he does not make money from his development of AC. I would be highly disappointed in his business acumen if he did not. What he has said is that there is no direct cost to you or me, or any user of AC. And that is indisputable-I downloaded AC, have used it pretty much since it first came out, and it has never asked me for a credit card #. So, yeah, some marine company of some kind may pay Jeff for something related to AC, and in some way shape or form, that small piece may end up as an indirect cost of some service or product I buy. Is it material? Does it really make any difference to me whatsoever? No.
It costs jobs? Technology has "cost" jobs since the earliest hominid figured out how to lash two poles together so it only took two guys, rather than four, to haul a Mammoth hindquarter home to the lady of the cave. Man tends to figure it out over time, new jobs replace old ones. As I write this, I am sitting in a nice room in my favorite hotel in D.C. I look around and there are two double beds rather than just the one I need. There is a big screen cable TV, but I watch all I want on my computer. There is a mini-bar refrig I don't use, cost maybe $1,000. There are towek sets for 6 in the bathroom. There is a guy in a palace guard uniform with 8 brass buttons to open to door for me. I don't need any of that. Why is all that indirect cost in the room rate I pay? And it is the same with every single dollar you spend, every single thing you buy. Some indirect costs that do not benefit you directly are included in what you pay. And you want the real kicker? I had a hard time getting a room here, had to actually ask for a favor. Why? Because I see a lot of folks here who never heard of this hotel until they got a laptop and discovered Travelocity or Expedia. And now my favorite little place in DC is crowded. Damn! But my brother, a senior exec in the company that owns it, seems to be just fine with it. Wonder why?
You should get over it and find a better target for your misplaced anger.
I hope this discussion waked some people that are using all these "gadgets" at the end all recreation boaters pay the costs of all this, Jeffrey for sure calls this progress.
What you use shows up as a direct cost to me through higher slip fees, parts costs, etc.
...............I don't see that as a problem. I think that's win-win.........
Only for you, as we boaters pay your income....
Jeffrey, why does you not admit that it doesn't interrest you a sh#t who pay the bill aslong as you has your income..