I searched for a replacement, preferring to buy online since it’s easy to find the same shoe online for 30-40% less than in a brick and mortar store.  From suggestions on Internet forums, I bought a similar shoe from an online retailer made by the same manufacturer.  However, the new shoe felt like running in sandals compared to the discontinued model.  It gave me no stability and very little cushioning in the forefoot.

Why do shoe companies insist on changing their shoe lineup every year?  There isn’t a shoe model that either doesn’t get changed or discontinued on a yearly basis.  The shoe that treated me well for so long was suddenly gone.  I probably bought 15 or 20 pairs of that model, and what does the manufacturer do to reward me for my loyalty?  They hang me out to dry.

There’s no functional reason to update, discontinue, or introduce new running shoes with such magnitude and frequency.  Some research indicates people are better off without running shoes.  However, shoes are generally made to accommodate a small handful of biomechanical differences in runners.  With these differences identified, each manufacturer should make a shoe that successfully addresses these problems for most of the population and let things be.  With the current cycle of drastic shoe changes, either running shoe technology is so terrible that the manufacturers are constantly scrambling to find shoes that work or human evolution is taking place at unprecedented levels.

Instead of producing something consistent and functional, shoe companies care more about generating marketing hype surrounding their products.  They want consumers to crave the latest running shoe with its biodegradable materials, patented cushioning materials, and futuristic looks.  I don’t care how many proprietary materials the shoe is made out of or what the shoe looks like, I only want it to keep me from getting injured.   Every shoe I’ve ever bought goes from mostly white to a dirty, muddy mess in a matter of days, but as long as it keeps me in one piece, that’s all that really matters.

The constant shoe updates also force me to buy from a regular retail store since I have to try on several pairs to find a new one that works.  Sizing changes from model to model, so I’m wary of buying a new pair without first trying it on.  Retail stores mark up prices as much as 100% of what they paid the manufacturer, so it’s easy to find an online retailer who charges far less than the suggested retail price.  Going to the store today, I’ve found that what was the $80 shoe five years ago is now the $100 shoe.  Some shoes are nearly $200.  All of them wear out in 300-400 miles, so what exactly is it that warrants the extra cost?

Running shoes shouldn’t be any different than a household appliance.  Shoes should be something that do their job faithfully and can be replaced at the end of their lifespan with a model that performs exactly the same way.

Unless you live in an area with subsidized broadband and/or wifi, you’ve got to pay an access fee to an ISP. At this point, dial-up is more or less useless, so you’ve got to fork over $40 every month just to get online. Like most people, your ISP is probably a large telecom, like Verizon, Comcast, or AT&T, so the true cost is probably a lot more than that since it’s almost impossible to buy internet access by itself. You’re forced into signing up for a “bundle” which is some combination of land line phone, cell phone, TV, and internet all provided by the same company.  A lot of the junk (and added cost) that comes along with the bundle is probably unwanted, like bizarre foreign language TV channels, call waiting, and hardware rental fees since the option isn’t often given to buy your own modem or cable boxes.  By purchasing a bundle from an ISP, you’re subsidizing the weirdos who actually watch some of those high-numbered TV stations, listen music on their TV, or enjoy being nagged by call waiting that can’t be turned off.  Since the number of providers available for a given location are usually pretty limited, you’re forced into paying monopolistic prices as well as paying for services that you don’t even want.

It’s bad enough that you’ve got to fork over the dough for services that you don’t even want in order to get internet access, but in truth, it’s a lot worse.  Access is merely a base cost for using the internet.  In nearly all cases, there’s also a cost for accessing content.  Somebody has to pay for hosting and generation of that website you frequent or the videos you watch, and again, it’s going to be you.  Advertising is one commonly used method to shift the cost onto consumers.  Nearly every website has it.  Until around five years ago with the advent of pop-up blockers, Javascript removal tools, and ad-blocking tools, every website I visited spammed me with a torrent of flashing banner ads, pop-ups, and keyword advertising.  Somehow, the notion goes, enough people would actually click on that crap and buy whatever it was that was being advertised.  The advertising revenue would keep the servers running and provide the blog/newspaper authors with a small paycheck.

Personally, I can’t stand advertising in general.  It gets in the way of whatever it is I’m trying to do, whether it be searching or browsing the internet, reading a print newspaper, or watching TV.  Reading the paper or watching TV probably adds about fifteen minutes of sifting through all the ads or waiting through commercials to get to the rest of the TV show I want to watch or the newspaper article I want to read.  I’ve never clicked on a banner ad, much less even bought something that was advertised in this manner.  On the internet,  it’s hard to manually filter out all the crap to get to what you want.  Fortunately, current ad-blocking tools do a pretty good job.  I’ve even forgotten how good a job they really do, for when I sit down in front of a computer without any ad-blocking software, the harassment of flashing banners and keyword ads drive me up the wall.

Though internet advertising revenue has increased in the last year, it is predicted to fall in 2009.  Everyone is finally getting sick of all the junk constantly being pushed at them as advertising approaches levels seen in “Idiocracy” and methods used in “Minority Report.”  A great argument against internet advertising states that it is “not trusted, not wanted, and not needed.”  While print newspapers are folding due to declining subscriptions, content providers on the internet are worried about a similar fate due to declining ad revenue.  Ironically, the print newspapers mainly blame their plight on the shift to electronic media.  To that end, content providers are considering increasing their usage of a second tool to provide revenue: yet another access cost.

Most online newspaper websites and online offerings of network TV shows do so with fairly low restrictions on who accesses their content. The front page stories for nearly every newspaper are available online as well as last night’s Lost episode.  This freedom of access is what makes the internet so great: once you get in, there are few barriers to access anything.  However, the same people that brought you bundled internet access want to change that.  One media executive says, “We want to change consumer behavior somewhat, so the expectation that everything online is free has to change.”  If this expectation changes, the internet as we know it is finished.  It is the freedom and openness of the internet that makes it as valuable as it is.  You can find anything or anyone and learn about nearly any topic available.  On the internet, you can collaborate with people half a world away.  The introduction of a second access cost for some internet content will most likely remove that openness.  The effort to preserve network neutrality has been in place for several years, but now it may be coming to an end.  Several ISPs are currently proposing pay access for channels and TV shows online.  The movement of this business model may force providers of other media to do the same.  Original sources will become locked down, leaving open and collaborative efforts to rot without them, such as Wikipedia, or IMDB.  Someone may want you to look at a video posted to YouTube, but you can’t look at it because you don’t have the money to pay the access fee.

Nobody really wants to pay a pile of access fees to get the latest news, or even to watch videos on the internet, especially when an ISP is charging a significant monthly fee just to get online (though some say they are).  The problem is that the annoyance and unprofitability of internet advertising is forcing a shift to another solution to prop up content providers.  If the shift to selling access to content goes too far, the internet may become segmented into a large number of tiers, causing the digital divide to span both the physical and electronic worlds.