I could not disagree more with those that keep thinking that moving contest
into a real time - wired - internet gaming looking world will somehow enable
significant growth in our sport.
Some things actually ARE attractive because they are different. If you
don't realize this you start fatally modifying it to be less different and
alienate the people that are attracted to this difference. Then if the way
you modify it is so incapable of attracting the crowd that wasn't originally
interested in that difference, it dies. This is where I believe radiosport
is today.it is a totally unique experience and if you don't cherish that
difference, it dies, in my opinion.
So how does it grow if it isn't by trying to twitter, facebook, Xbox, and
mobile app it? It grows because it is a micro market. It's a worldwide
market right now of thousands (maybe 10 - 20k) and that is up some 50% over
the past 10 - 20 years. The things being discussed are markets of hundreds
of millions if not billions. By the way, has anyone actually looked at what
the ideal size of the interested parties is? I mean how many CQing robot
signals can you fit in the 20M SSB portion in the low sunspot years anyway?
Or in the 40M SSB portion any year? (Code is dead and an old man's mode
remember?) We could actually be at the optimum level right now of
participation given our resources. We are the "dial up line" of the
communication era and how many mobile app users can we actually support
anyway?
I just don't understand why 50% growth over the past decade or so is not
viewed as success. And if demographics are scaring people, then look at
"marketing the difference and uniqueness and all those attributes" as a
plan, instead of changing it to be more like that which we will lose against
and in so doing kill what the current market enjoys.
In my opinion, contesting looks very much like it does now in 50 years or
its dead. Because robotic contests would be so boring heck even I would
rather be an on be an online gamer.
Ed N1UR
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