<<So my point is, not only is consumer spending diminished, but the market may just be saturated for all these new gadgets.>>
I agree. I was reading the latest Time mag in a waiting room yesterday... they had about 20 pages of "electronic items for Xmas". I am an averagely gadget-oriented, red-blooded consumer kind of dude, but I couldn't find a single item in the article which interested me.
DVD players are probably going to sell OK this Christmas... their picture quality is somewhat better than a VHS tape on most TV's. But even there... the availability of rental DVD's still isn't anywhere near that of VHS tapes. My local Blockbuster gets maybe 2 copies of the DVD and 50 VHS copies for new releases. The HDTV revolution is, of course, postponed for a really long while.
But the biggest gadget bust of all is going to be this wireless internet fantasy. This whole concept has so many crippling drawbacks it's almost funny... user interface, speed, cost, functionality, convenience, you name it. IDC forecasts 80 million US wireless users by 2003 or something, and this is the centerpiece on which the cell phone industry is pinning its whole future? Sheesh.
Personally, I used to be happy to replace cell phones every year, as long as the phone was free with a new contract. The new phones were smaller, clearer and had longer battery life. But my latest (a basic Nokia) is "good enough" for all my basic needs. So I have lost interest in replacing it until it dies, and I bet I'm far from alone. |
