What do we have here? A picture of Blackriver trucks for sale, on two different sites. Why? Well, I wanted to discuss something that I've been pondering for a while, and they're quite a good way of demonstrating such a point.
Fingerboarding is very global, I think we can all agree to that, people come from all over the world for events and such. What does that have to do with products? Well, not so much just the products, but people's thoughts on them. See, every country has different economies (obviously), and an amount of money, whilst being exchanged into local currency, can seem totally different from one area to another. I think Blackriver trucks demonstrate this perfectly. My point of pondering is.. Do you think each local scene has a totally different opinion on products, due to their price? For example, I know in the UK and in a lot of europe, £41/50 euros isn't THAT much. Like, its not as cheap as a chocolate bar obviously, but its not mindblowing. Then you put that into America, where you're looking at 70 dollars for trucks. The thing that makes a difference is the fact that in countries such as America, stuff is a lot cheaper. For example, maybe 40-50 dollars on a set of skateboarding trucks, compared to £50-60 we pay here. Which is like 80-90 dollars. See how things aren't even?
I think it must play a much larger role than a lot of us see, and on many products out there. I mean, look at all the major decks in the US scene, 30 dollars seems a standard price. All the major decks in Europe, 35+ euros. Whilst in each local, those prices seem normal, when translated things seem unfair. You see on forums a lot people complain at prices and wish things were cheaper, but I wonder if that would happen if people only brought local products? If Americans only rode 30 dollar decks, there might be no one saying 'dammmn I don't want to pay 45 dollars for a Berlinwood' - and in the other direction too, we might not look at paying 30 dollars for a professional deck as cheap.
I think its quite interesting how much something like this affects how things are viewed by the people in the scene, and can have a knock on effect to other scenes as well. Next time you find yourself grumbling at prices, give a thought to how stuff like this gives you a totally different perspective to those from the originating country of a product.
Do you agree with this? Do you think people would complain anyway? Anything else to say or add? Feel free to leave a comment and I'll try join in discussions as much I can.
For now go support unitefingerboarding by checking out Fingersized here :)
