Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

According to Best Buy's CEO.

Apparently 'kids these days' are valuing experiences over 65" 8k TVs and all its accessories, much to the dismay of an electronics store that hasn't done any significant innovation over the last decade or so.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

Let's see (looking at my equipment): I have a Bluray player that we got probably a decade ago when we stumbled upon a sale of the collected Harry Potter movies for a nice price and only had a DVD player at the time. My TV is a 1080p that's smaller than a 42" (foot hurts, can't be arsed to dig out my measuring tape), I did buy a new receiver last year because my old one blowed up. My speakers are literally 35 years old: B&W DM 220s that sound absolutely amazing! I did recently buy two computer backpacks from them for the missus and me, along with a 14 TB backup drive and three movies. I'm contemplating a 4K Bluray drive, but I'm not going to upgrade the TV until it starts giving me problems or we move out of the country.

Oh, the TV I bought in '18 because I was having sinus surgery and was going to be out of commission for a couple of weeks. The one we had was dying and we were planning on watching all six of the director's editions Hobbit/Lord of the Rings movies. It was under $200 from Best Buy and still 1080p! Great picture, lousy sound - but since the sound is routed through the stereo and the B&Ws, it doesn't matter!

Sorry, Best Buy. I'm just not in the mood to shell out a lot of bucks on home electronics since I don't need to. But you can console yourself that I'm also not going to see Taylor in concert or the concert movie, so neither of you is going to get my entertainment dollars.

https://gizmodo.com/best-buy-ceo-blames-taylor-swift-for-sales-slump-1850929463

I read an article on Forbes (IIRC) recently that said Best Buy is doomed, and now BB is announcing that they're closing 50 stores. With my luck they'll close the one in Las Cruces and leave the two or three in El Paso alone, just like they did for Toys R Us.

With Toys R Us, they were bought out by a rather mercenary capital group who thought that in some cases the land the stores were on were more valuable than the stores themselves, never mind if they provided services to the community that were profitable for the corp. I've seen many such sites still vacant after the stores closed, not unlike when Mervyn's died.

In this case, I think most of the blame can be laid at the feet of poor customer service and constantly pressing people to buy extended warranties. They're blaming a lot of their woes on Amazon, which demonstrates that they're failing at the customer service game, something that Amazon is well-regarded for.

BB reported a $1.7 billion US loss for their fourth quarter, versus a $651 million US profit the previous fiscal year. I told my wife after I read the Forbes article, which mainly blamed poor customer service, that I'm giving them four years before they're gone or bought out, but who would buy them out? Now I'm giving them less than three.

This saddens me, because if I need to buy some strange computer gear, locally I'll be limited to Staples, Radio Shack, and Walmart, or wait until I'm in Phoenix and can go to Fry's Electronics if I want to handle it and actually look at boxes, otherwise it'll be Amazon or similar.

You'd think that as well as Amazon is doing, that the US Postal Service would be doing better. I really don't like the concept of internet-only purchasing for people who live in somewhat remote communities like I do.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SBB0001424052702303404704577311322427071212.html

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/30/1830209/best-buy-closing-50-stores

Apparently they consider collecting porn to be an easter egg hunt. The problem is, if your computer is not working, there's no way to clean it up prior to taking it in for repairs. So I guess keep the salacious stuff on an external HD.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/07/peep-squad-iii-.html