He forgot to say "above the Kemper and not as good". Liquid Profiling blows them away by miles. I think Fender should stick to guitars and amps. I've never heard anyone consider their effects department as "high end" or above mediocre except for maybe their spring reverb. Prove me wrong.
I'll never understand how companies operate. I know it's just capitalism and how that works. But Fender or any company Doesn’t have to do everything and keep expanding, and expanding. When they're huge, the people who run and invest in the company have Nothing to do with or care about the "product" It's just a means to an end. As far as music companies, Sure, people want new shiny products, great. Let new companies exist that do different things well. But as far as specific brands, Fender, Gibson, Marshall, etc. All Anyone ever talks about, and what a majority of their marketing is geared toward is those few products that were the best ever made, way back when. It isn't nostalgia (which they are marketing) It's that they were really, really better. I own examples of those products. The company was focused on a very few products (even though some of these audio miracles were really just a fluke.) But a product takes off, the company then needs actual business people and then it's cutting corner, and greed time because it’s only about money. Then the original founders, and workers leave and get bought out and it's a "BRAND" that they sell us. Greed is the ruination of everything. Make your awesome product, treat your employees well, stick to what you’re good at make your million, make 2, 3,4,5. You deserve it. Stop trying to make it a billion. These "Brands" care more about their t-shirts and merch department than what got them there. The people who run it, and they have to at this point, just look at the charts, and graphs, their employee's "productivity" and pay them the minimal required for their position while demanding they always do more, faster, with less, so the big important guys at the top can justify paying themselves more. A company doesn’t have to be huge, and they can still meet demand if they only focus on what they do great. Nothing sounds better than my '54 tele straight through my blackface bassman. it's heaven.