I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself – but by the same token, I’d be shocked if a lot of people don’t feel pretty much the same way that I do right about now.
Right now, I feel like we’re being given the mushroom treatment. I feel like we’ve been given a variety of stories. I feel like we’ve had one trial balloon after another floated in front of us, in the hopes that we’d buy at least ONE of the “explanations” and then shut up already and leave you alone.
I feel like we were told one story before the product was officially discontinued. I feel like we were told to hang on, be patient, and TRUST you.
I feel like we were told ANOTHER story after the product was taken out of production.
I feel like Sansa made a danged near instant transition from “top-shelf most-favored vendor of premium grade equipment at reasonable prices” to “just another low-rent outfit trying to blow smoke up my ass.”
I feel like we’re being told that our gear – just recently taken out of production, and still being sold as NEW product, still in the retail channel – is “obsolete” and no longer worthy of continued support.
This, to me, is how I’d feel if I bought a 2008 car in December of 2008, and then in January of 2009, told to get lost and stop bothering them about various design defects, because the car was no longer in production, and was therefore obsolete.
Bottom line: I feel like the whole stinking affair boils down to a case of “We already sold that ■■■■, there’s no reason for us to pretend to care about it anymore. Shut up, get lost, go away, stop pestering us, we have NEW stuff to sell.”
I sum up the gestalt of the entire mess in the phrase mentioned above: LOW-RENT.
Nice work, guys. It’s not every day that a company kicks their MOST loyal customers right square in the privates.
