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Stuntman Mike wrote:

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i think sneaker collectors make up a very small sliver of the nike profit machine anyway. we are probably just advertising tools to keep the brand relevant. tell me how much "profit" they made from the pigeon SBs? how much media coverage did they get? how much profit did they make from the yeezys? how much hype was built for the brand off that 1 shoe? how many people know the yeezys as compared to how many people know the LV dons/jaspers? they will continue to pump out low quality garbage to the masses at huge profit margins because it's what they do best and we will continue to be their pawns. 

I basically agree. Nike could get a whale in me if they could release solid AF1s and AM95s again, but it's not in their overall interest please the pickiest, most knowledgeable customers given how much extra effort it would take. Nike does fine with a general public that doesn't really care. People like us reel in the next generation of sneakerheads, who are basically Nike's toys. They eat everything up for a bit and are whales until they learn better, and then they run the cycle over again.

And, the diritest secret of all - we're all elitist borderline hypebeasts in our own way, it's just that we have a different definition of heat than others. So, if Nike really started dropping joints exactly like the old days - if we didn't have to chase - many of us would become disenchanted and fall off too because we'd start taking everything for granted. I have this conversation with Corgi all the time - people confused "limited" and "rare." Limited shoes aren't rare at all, but a lot of the stuff we drool over is truly rare. It's hypebeasty in a way, but it's for the right reasons. We chase rare stuff too and if it stopped being rare, we might not be so fervent about it.

Also, it's all self-preservation. When you reach a point in the pursuit of sneakers where you're only really limited by how much you can find what you want, you become more selective in order to justify not buying everything you see. Truth is, if the "glory days" returned, most of us would probably just find some other set of criteria to exclude most of the new releases. And, you know, Nike KNOWS THAT. In certain ways, their greedy marketing folks know more about us than we're willing to admit about ourselves. Real talk. No matter what they do, they can't release these models at the pace that they currently do and expect us "sneakerheads" not to find some reason to pass on most of them. The only way they could actually get us to pretty much cop everything would be to make step up quality AND release many fewer pairs. They'd take a bath from the public by doing that though, so they know what they have to do to maximize their profits.

Repenting with a pic for the wall of text earlier. Any Duke fans might want to close their eyes.