What can we do?
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Jaap wonders what we can do. Indeed a new sound. In most forums and discussion groups about the future of the HiFi industry, others than consumers are often pointed out as the cause. For example, investment companies, large manufacturers with “deep pockets” buying a brand or technology from small companies or marketing officials putting undue pressure on media. Will those parties begin to adapt to counteract any negative effects of their behavior on the HiFi industry? That doesn’t seem realistic to me. You don’t convince the groups exercising market power through a forum or opinion article that they should start changing their behavior. Therefore, the question “what can we consumers ourselves do?” is very relevant.
Countervailing power
If market power is indeed unbalanced, is there anything we can do about it by counterbalancing it, by countervailing power? And, starting with ourselves, can we as consumers organize or contribute to countervailing power? Yes indeed, there are many ways.
For example, we can:
- Give quality-oriented retailers more attention. That means, for example, that we as consumers turn more to that retailer.
- Getting existing consumer organizations more interested in the HiFi sector or creating new consumer interest groups.
- Establish consumer purchasing organizations.
- As consumers participate in the parties with market power and thus influence their policies “from within” as activist shareholders try to do.
- Allowing the media to act independently of manufacturers. For us, that means taking out paid subscriptions to media platforms, joining media organizations, or otherwise supporting the media so that they rely less on ad revenue and can get out from under pressure from manufacturers.
- Preferably purchasing equipment or music in which open standards are used so that we can compare offerings as best we can and not be forced to buy all or part of our audio system from the same manufacturer.
- The initiation and management by consumer organizations of labels for technology and information …
- … etcetera
These are possibilities that vary quite a bit. Some are relatively quick to implement, others take a long time. Some require a lot from consumers others much less. I do not want to suggest here that we introduce them or discuss their pros and cons. However, I do want to cite examples that have sometimes gained a foothold in other sectors and that work. Above all, I want to argue that we as consumers also have a role in providing countervailing power. But, it must be said, these options have in common that they require something from consumers. Organizing countervailing power costs money and/or effort, sometimes even a lot of money and/or effort.
Our turn!
It’s our turn now!. As long as the relationships in the HiFi industry don’t change dramatically, no one is coming to fix it for us. Either we do it ourselves or we resign ourselves to the situation and accept the distribution of market power in HiFi. There is quite a bit to be said for the latter. After all, in that case we can be taken care of by manufacturers who provide fine equipment and good quality music recordings. For us consumers, HiFi is a hobby, not a livelihood. A hobby that, if we can afford it, we can comfortably pursue as it stands. If we don’t want that and we don’t want to resign ourselves to the current distribution of market power then organizing counter-power is going to cost us effort and/or money. It’s just what we want. But, it is therefore what we want!