I'm reading Apple in China, which is interesting at the detail level (basically how they trained up with the help of Taiwan literally millions of skilled people to produce all their tech - it is now hardly surprising that china doesn't need the US's help any more to make new stuff...)
But the author seems to think that outsourcing tech manufacturing was something terribly new and clever.
Don't get me started on clothing and the east india company and the british empire...
Closer to home for the USA, however, is a much more instructive story - the electric guitar:
(Also lots of other instruments- remember Yamaha flutes were jolly good an way cheaper than Gemeinhardt)
but gibeon and fender both started manufacturing in mexico and japan then later in indonesia - sometimes trying to "brand" things different(ly) so western prejudice about "lower build quality" from those foreigners was offset by calling things Epiphone or Squier (actually its a bit more complex than that, but you get the idea)...
But in reality the outsorced products weren't just a whole lot cheaper. I own a japanese made custom shop fender strat and a 1982 squier tele (possibly/probably made in korea) - both are a very very good - better than instruments i've tried at 5-10 times the price (the tele was off a friend but if you look at the time they were £150. the strat was used so hard to know what new cost was but probably £1500.
And nowadays, i'd still buy a squier or epiphone (i had a beautiful 335 for a while) or just bite the bullet and buy an ibanez (actually, just did - £300 - fantastic quality - though i did recently buy a G&L Tribute (fretless) bass which was made in the USA and was very sensibly priced (unde £500).
Anyhow, what Apple did (hollowing themselves out) was absolutely nothing new. It wasn't even rock'n'roll.
No comments:
Post a Comment