On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 23:58:53 GMT, Fred R "spam
wrote:

I noticed and mourned. My (only? last?) hope is that the community of
serious users - good contractors, artisans, hobbyists - will form enough
of a market to support a few good tool suppliers. The "channel" will be
eBay stores and UPS rather than retailers; I'm afraid the Wall will kill
everything else before it it poisoned by its own waste products.

Whether the aforementioned serious users will be able to afford those
tools is a whole 'nother can of worms.

The Waltons of the world have a bad habit of "buying" market share by
selecting a particular "commodity" and selling it cheaper than anyone
else. To do this they pretty well force the supplier to lower their
price, requiring cheapening the product. So some company. like Black
and Decker, determines to "own" that market, come what may.

Soon the B&Ds of the world, through the Waltons of the world, are the
only sourse for a particular item. Soon there is no money left in the
product for either one - it's a tossup whether the B&Ds go broke first
or if the Waltons decide to cut their losses and stop selling them -
and then you can not get the item anywhere for any price.