too many people here forget how old they are
if you're a high school or college aged skateboarder what has soletech done in that decade or less time span you've been skating that makes you feel like their shoes are cool? and the answer to that is "absolutely nothing"
emerica and etnies have "good teams" but they don't have anybody on those teams who are the equivalent of what marc johnson, heath kirchart, sal barbier, andrew reynolds, es templeton, mike vallely, etc were to us. skateboarding is in a completely different place than it was 25-20, even 15-10 years ago and honestly the idea that things even have to be "core" is a completely archaic ideology within skateboarding now. kids now literally grew up with nike/cons, adidas and new balance being not only a part of skateboarding but they grew up with skateboarding being "part of society" and they buy shit off the internet so they don't need core shops, they watch video clips on instagram, so they don't need to hear about what's happening in magazines and at shops and skateparks so there's way less of a sense of "community" in skateboarding today and the way we had things is never coming back because consumerism even niche consumerism runs through the internet now.
so "we" don't have to "let soletech" live or die that's not how free markets works
if you're old enough to be nostalgic for how things used to be this will come off depressing but "our time" is over as far as dictating the market goes and as more of us continually age out and stop spending money within this sector brands like etnies, es, emerica, and lakai struggle more and more to sustain
the only thing that can save any of these companies is their ability to start attracting marketable talent like they used to but with dwindling budgets to do that with we know that's never going to happen because nike adidas and new balance can pay the "cool kids" way better than soletech or lakai can
just enjoy what little time these companies have left and enjoy the fleeting time we even have left physically to even skate at a high enough level to still feel compelled enough to immerse yourself in skateboarding because we're all 30+ (on the young side) if we're even engaging this type of topic because again nobody under that age even understands why it should matter if soletech exists or not because to them soletech just chooses not to put together a trendy team where as the sport brands do
nostalgia is powerful and i wouldn't be at all surprised if nike adidas or even nb ended up buying the soletech trademarks eventually just to make them cool again later by doing what soletech can't afford to do and that's pay a group of trendy skaters to do that
and before anybody bitches that nike came in with a bunch of money and crippled the smaller brands from being able to complete just remember that guys don't go pro at skateboarding not to make money and none of them gave a shit about skateboarding remaining skater owned because because those pros all understood that in order for nike to even want back in skateboarding that skateboarding itself was already changing and becoming more marketable so this whole thing was literally just an ordinary growth process and there's no victim's because it was just evolution and that meant shit was bound to die off as things changed
Poll
Topic: Poll: should we let soletech die (Read 20362 times)