I agree with what your saying.
What i am saying is the product and company are evolving and we dont know what the original business model was.
For a 'hobby' guitarist ive spent alot of money over the years on gear.
Guitars amps and rack gear. Some of the 90s and 2000s rack gear was comparable price wise.
If you wanted to update that you had to but an chip and plug it in or you would get no update at all.
Add inflation on to a digitech 2101 at £1000 + in the 90s. What would that cost now ?
Display More
It matters not what the original intent was, they still have to compete in a market and with consumer expectations. This isn't 90's rack gear, this is a modern digital device that doesn't possess those same limitations.
The whole point originally was that kemper didnt want a software editor and wanted it to be easy to tweak so the unit was priced to reflect that.
The cost and time to delelop the editor may not have been factored in and only became viable as the unit sales went up.
I don't think the price reflected the lack of an editor. Though, Christoph did earlier state that he didn't see the need for an editor, but obviously it's been demonstrated conclusively over the years that in fact the customer sees it as a need.
Customers can demand what they like but it doesnt make it viable for the business.
I guess it depends how far you want to take that statement. But in this case, there's nothing unreasonable, and the customers purse is what keeps companies in business, therefore their expectations do matter. It doesn't entitle them to that satisfaction, but it's not really good business practice to ignore it either.
If the financial constraints made kemper put in what would have been the editor budget into improved sound quality to be able to put the product on the market at a particular price point then i think thats the correct decision. The sound quality is what has made the product popular.
You're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't see any evidence this was a zero-sum proposition.
The line 6 pod xt had an editor, but you had to pay for updates and it sounded like shit. I think the hd 500 was the same.
That's solely a matter of opinion, but it doesn't negate the importance of a desktop editor in any practical way when it comes to Kemper or any other digital device.
Without being sarcastic gibson dont upgrade your les paul pickups for you.
Ford dont upgrade your vehicle ecu after 12 months to give you more horsepower or fuel economy.
Entirely irrelevant examples. You're comparing apples to oranges. Or maybe apples to jet fuel.
If everyone paid 2 grand for the kemper originally we probably would have had an editor from the start.
But if it was priced at 2 grand how many people would have actually bought it at that price point ?
I suspect its popularity wouldnt have been anything like what it is, meaning again there would have been less future development to where we are now at with the updates weve got.
Again, this is based on no evidence. All we know is that Christoph didn't feel a desktop editor was needed. He never suggested the lack of one was due to limitations in resources.
The amount of companys that are going under due to unrealistic demands from customers expecting the impossible is scarey.
There is nothing unrealistic about customer demands for an editor. Why are we making this out like people are asking them to do something extraordinary?
In todays climate no company is safe.
No different than any other time.
