Nick's question of "why"?

[husq2100]

Why not? ;-)

For example, I see a real market for the Military, Para Military 2 and Para 3. They are are similar shape, design and function, but their ergonomics of size makes them each perfect for different range of hands. Thats just one shape/style. And I see no problems with and offering users different colour and steel options.

If he is truly asking why, if he really has got to that point, surely he should be down to just one or 2 knives....

[SG89]

Well now hold on a second here... I don't know if any of the "attacking Nick" posts were directed at me, but if so, there's no moral "diversity" high ground to be had there.

It is, in my humble opinion entirely relevant to see a knife reviewer use their knife. No, not abuse, not even close. As I've said many times, these are folding pocket knives for crying out loud. But at least show me it in use. First, to me, it would be like watching a review of a food processor and the reviewer talks about how awesome the styling is, how quiet the motor is, the different buttons, but never really shows you how well it chops up food. If that's cool with you, great, but it isn't enough for me. Second, the entire premise of the video is relevant to the use of knives.

It is completely legitimate to critique and voice opinions about a prominent knife reviewer posting a video about his malaise around the saturation of new knife models, especially when asked for opinions by a knife maker. I didn't just come on here and start bashing Nick or his videos. I was asked for an opinion and I gave it.

In my mind, making money off of an industry that you compare and contrast against each other and push for innovations and new steels and materials make absolute declarations and so on, that you then lament for 20min's about putting out too many how-hum options is hypocrisy and for me, answers Sal's question of "Whatdoyouthink?" That's what I think.

Nick is largely viewed as an expert in the online knife community and has the power to influence, at least to some extent, the direction of the knife market. This is a role he voluntarily engages in and more power to him. I respect that. However, with that, you open yourself to critique. Just posting a video such as that being discussed is opening yourself to critique. And critique is what I provided and it was relevant to the discussion.

In the spirit of diversity, my opinions and thoughts are just as valid as those that Nick shares in his video. For the record, Nick and I have exchanged private messages in the past and while I don't expect him to remember me or anything I'm just saying that this is something he and I have discussed before. I can be gruff and blunt but I do respect that he puts himself out there.

Sal said he thought it would make for interesting discussion and I reckon it has.

Just to clarify my post was not directed at you but towards the post attacking other forum member's "knife usage"

[RickC27]

My gripe ...

Why have a gripe? :confused:

Do you honestly believe you are more of a knife user than other members here and there should be some hard and fast rules that determine what constitutes knife use?

What business is it of yours or mine as to what anyone uses there knife/knives for or what they say about them?

With regard to helping and advising novices on knife selection, sharpening etc. do you know of a better site that a novice like myself could attend and maybe learn a little? :)

Yes, yes I do. Because I know I actually do use my knives. At work, around the yard, in the woods, while camping, doing my own cardboard cutting tests to see how long knives stay sharp between various steels. It's nothing about hard and fast rules, it's just facts. Someone that stricly collects or flips and doesn't use a knife, knows NOTHING about how it cuts other than what they've heard or read. So yes, compared to them, I am more of a knife user. So if they talk about how great some knife is haven't done anything besides cut a strand of hair or a piece of paper, if that...then their talking out their rear end! That's no different than me talking about the performance of a motorcycle when I've never driven one.

[Eli Chaps]

Just to clarify my post was not directed at you but towards the post attacking other forum member's "knife usage"

Thank you ma'am and I know. I fully understood your post.

[Naperville]

SSOOOoooo,

Nick did this video on the question of Why? The video is long, but you can tell he's passionate about his question. Jason posted it on another forum. Yes, I watched the whole thing, mostly because I have a lot of respect for Nick. I don't always agree with him, but I always try to see his point of view. I thought the question posed would make an interesting discussion?

We always ask ourselves the question when we introduce a new model. In fact we probably introduce more new models or variations than most knife companies.

With Collaboration designs?

With in-house designs?

With exclusives?

With variations, sprints, flash batches?

https://youtu.be/0i4raHD ... e=youtu.be

Whatdoyouthink?

sal

Great video.

Spyderco floors me with their steels and one off designs, I admit I am a fan, but there is one huge huge huge problem for me.

Please hear me out. Right now, TODAY, I'm not making a lot of money and even if I did...a lot of my income goes to buying knives. I have over 75 knives and more than $17k invested so far and I do not plan on stopping any time soon. Here is my problem. I get paid on around the 3rd of the month. In the future I'll be getting paid weekly or every two weeks. But I cannot keep up with the endless Sprint runs and I am missing out on a lot of knives. I can think of 3 or 4 within the last two months and I have a solution.

Buck, Benchmade and possibly half a dozen others have a "Custom Shop" interface on their site where if the order is not made "TODAY AT 8:47AM" there is always a way to make the order next week on my own time, when I have the income or the space on the credit card. It may be exciting for teens and tweens to wait patiently near a keyboard to get an order in and then go bragging abt bagging the latest copy of XYZ, but the rest of us cannot get in on something that drives sales FOR YOU, the manufacturer and makes us the clientele ecstatic!

I'd very much like to see Spyderco move to a system where if the one or two models in S30V are not appealing that we can go to the Spyderco Custom Shop interface and order up the knife with the grips and blade steel we are interested in.

I missed out on the Para3 in 204P recently and I cannot imagine how many people fall in to that club every time that one of these offers is made. Also, I may not be in to a Yojimbo in M4 with natural handles, but I'd gladly order one with black G-10. The custom shop interface fixes both problems and I gurantee you will sell more knives, and people will pick whatever handle materials and steels that they love.

[Bloke]

My gripe ...

Why have a gripe? :confused:

Do you honestly believe you are more of a knife user than other members here and there should be some hard and fast rules that determine what constitutes knife use?

What business is it of yours or mine as to what anyone uses there knife/knives for or what they say about them?

With regard to helping and advising novices on knife selection, sharpening etc. do you know of a better site that a novice like myself could attend and maybe learn a little? :)

Yes, yes I do. Because I know I actually do use my knives. At work, around the yard, in the woods, while camping, doing my own cardboard cutting tests to see how long knives stay sharp between various steels. It's nothing about hard and fast rules, it's just facts. Someone that stricly collects or flips and doesn't use a knife, knows NOTHING about how it cuts other than what they've heard or read. So yes, compared to them, I am more of a knife user. So if they talk about how great some knife is haven't done anything besides cut a strand of hair or a piece of paper, if that...then their talking out their rear end! That's no different than me talking about the performance of a motorcycle when I've never driven one.

I’m still confused. If I’m reading this correctly you’re saying that people who don’t use their knives like you do aren’t entitled to an opinion and the poor ole office workers and collectors should keep opinions to themselves?

[RadioactiveSpyder]

This thread is now going off the rails of what Sal intended. You guys need to take this collector vs user discussion somewhere else please. And for what it’s worth, I’m what you’d call a collector but I beat the living crap out of my users doing all that’s listed above and way more, so what does that make me? There’s all kinds of folks on this forum, the nice thing is Sal gave us the opportunity and arena to discuss these wonderful knives, no matter what angle you come in at or where you are in your knife journey in life.

[Bloke]

This thread is now going off the rails of what Sal intended. You guys need to take this collector vs user discussion somewhere else please. And for what it’s worth, I’m what you’d call a collector but I beat the living crap out of my users doing all that’s listed above and way more, so what does that make me? There’s all kinds of folks on this forum, the nice thing is Sal gave us the opportunity and arena to discuss these wonderful knives, no matter what angle you come in at or where you are in your knife journey in life.

:o

[RickC27]

This thread is now going off the rails of what Sal intended. You guys need to take this collector vs user discussion somewhere else please. And for what it’s worth, I’m what you’d call a collector but I beat the living crap out of my users doing all that’s listed above and way more, so what does that make me? There’s all kinds of folks on this forum, the nice thing is Sal gave us the opportunity and arena to discuss these wonderful knives, no matter what angle you come in at or where you are in your knife journey in life.

You're right, this is going off the rails. I'll stop with my opinions here. You sir, being a CC member...that's different. Knives marked specifically for you, I wouldn't expect to be used. It's COLLECTORS club for a reason. I think it's great your financially well off to be able to be a member, as well as afford knives that you use as well.

[bearfacedkiller]

I agree with RS. I want to respond to a few comments here, some of which were directed towards me or towards comments I have made but this thread has gone too far away from its intended direction. It has gotten interesting and may be a worthwhile discussion for another thread. We actually recently had one in off topic. Maybe take it there?

We were not asked about Nick or even his video. Comments about his credibility are irrlevant to Sal’s original question. We were asked to discuss the basic question Nick was asking. The “why’s” of actually bringing a product to market. The video states that there is too much quantity and not enough “new” coming to market. I think Sal wanted to know if we thought he was bringing something of value to the market or just quantity. I think he took the video to heart because they crank out more models and more variations of models than any other company. He even broke it down into categories for us to discuss. I tried to answer his question as specifically as he asked it in my initial response.

[Eli Chaps]

Here's the bottom line for me - I freaking love me some Spyderco folders. I haven't bought myself or anyone else around me another brand of folding knife in years. And that is very large part due to the diversity in product offerings.

I dislike coated blades. I wish Sal wasn't so attached to the finger choil. I have no idea why any rational people want ZDP189. I think wire clips should be standard. I think the Native 5 and Sage 5 aren't all that comfortable. I don't really care for the compression lock.

But a gillion people disagree with all of that and there's a hoop of options for all the things I do like! For my money, no one innovates or provides options like Spyderco. I love that Spyderco pushes envelopes, especially around steels. How boring the knife world would be if we just stopped at what worked well enough. Bronze swords and axes conquered empires and rock knives allowed civilization. But that didn't make them perfect and thank goodness folks keep pushing for new. New doesn't have to mean better for each person, it is totally okay for new to just mean new. That's how we advance.

I hope Spyderco never loses that spirit of innovation and exploration. If I had more money I would dive deep into the Ethnic line as I think it is truly amazing. There's no mass-market driving that line and I wouldn't be surprised if it is a frequent topic of discussions in the business meetings, but it sure is cool and I think it's awesome Spyderco continues it.

Why? Because.

[talesk]

SSOOOoooo,

Nick did this video on the question of Why? The video is long, but you can tell he's passionate about his question. Jason posted it on another forum. Yes, I watched the whole thing, mostly because I have a lot of respect for Nick. I don't always agree with him, but I always try to see his point of view. I thought the question posed would make an interesting discussion?

We always ask ourselves the question when we introduce a new model. In fact we probably introduce more new models or variations than most knife companies.

With Collaboration designs?

With in-house designs?

With exclusives?

With variations, sprints, flash batches?

https://youtu.be/0i4raHD ... e=youtu.be

Whatdoyouthink?

sal

Great video.

Spyderco floors me with their steels and one off designs, I admit I am a fan, but there is one huge huge huge problem for me.

Please hear me out. Right now, TODAY, I'm not making a lot of money and even if I did...a lot of my income goes to buying knives. I have over 75 knives and more than $17k invested so far and I do not plan on stopping any time soon. Here is my problem. I get paid on around the 3rd of the month. In the future I'll be getting paid weekly or every two weeks. But I cannot keep up with the endless Sprint runs and I am missing out on a lot of knives. I can think of 3 or 4 within the last two months and I have a solution.

Buck, Benchmade and possibly half a dozen others have a "Custom Shop" interface on their site where if the order is not made "TODAY AT 8:47AM" there is always a way to make the order next week on my own time, when I have the income or the space on the credit card. It may be exciting for teens and tweens to wait patiently near a keyboard to get an order in and then go bragging abt bagging the latest copy of XYZ, but the rest of us cannot get in on something that drives sales FOR YOU, the manufacturer and makes us the clientele ecstatic!

I'd very much like to see Spyderco move to a system where if the one or two models in S30V are not appealing that we can go to the Spyderco Custom Shop interface and order up the knife with the grips and blade steel we are interested in.

I missed out on the Para3 in 204P recently and I cannot imagine how many people fall in to that club every time that one of these offers is made. Also, I may not be in to a Yojimbo in M4 with natural handles, but I'd gladly order one with black G-10. The custom shop interface fixes both problems and I gurantee you will sell more knives, and people will pick whatever handle materials and steels that they love.

Omg yes.

I would much rather order from a spyderco custom shop service, wait, and pay premium as opposed to trying to snipe a sprint as they slowly bleed into the market.

The Facebook groups are a joke and people are asking over msrp for one of x sprint knives they managed to get multiple of. Close down the secondary price gouge market and let people casually order their dream knife.

Sal, is this possible?

Even if limited to golden, co knives this would be amazing.

[RickC27]

Sal,

I'm not sure if this is the proper place to ask, but with a handful of brand new models being released in the near future, I was wondering why most of them are being released in S30V? I have no problem with that, but was just curious?

Is it more for having a quality steel that's a happy medium these days? Kind of like a trial to see how they sell and what the feedback is on them before maybe getting into other steel options? Making sure the consumers are first and foremost, happy with the new design?

[Woodpuppy]

I think the best answer really is why not. Each of us here is an individual; sometimes our interests overlap/intersect and when that happens you have a wildly popular model. Sometimes though we see something that speaks to our own unique weird. Spyderco’s variety is wide, and overall that’s a great thing.

Sal, could you have imagined the Rivers Edge exclusive para3 would be so popular? Or the REX45? Home runs there. Evidently there are a lot of folks (me included) who thought “why not!!”

Keep up the great work! It’s been fun coming back to Spyderco after my break.

[brainfriction]

The custom shop idea is nice, but I can see why they don't do it that way. From a manufacturing perspective it's easier to set everything up, and then knock them all out at once. With so many models, they'd probably need another factory just to handle all the custom orders. That's just my speculation, I could be wrong.

[MichaelScott]

As I tried to point out, a critique of Nick and his question is relevant. If one asks “why” it is necessary for that person to reasonably define the definition and parameters of that word. In his video it seemed to me that his definitions centered around what he liked. I believe he missed the point that virtually all designers and makers have answered that question long before a knife goes into production. So, what is he asking for if not reasons that will please Nick?

In short, I don’t see Nick’s “why” as a valid question at all.

[Woodpuppy]

The custom shop idea is nice, but I can see why they don't do it that way. From a manufacturing perspective it's easier to set everything up, and then knock them all out at once. With so many models, they'd probably need another factory just to handle all the custom orders. That's just my speculation, I could be wrong.

I like the idea too, but it seems like a very difficult thing to do given the variety in just the pm2, para3 and Delica lineups. Way more choices than other manufacturers. Would they offer new things or one off items? If you can dream they can build it? Talk about a rabbit hole...

[gdwtvb]

Sal, Thanks for bringing this video to my attention, I found it very thought provoking.

I think the question of 'why' brings up another thought that I have had for some time. That thought is "The manufacturing capacity of the earth has far outstripped the actual need of the residents on this planet." It would be hard to convince every resident of the world that everyone actually needs a pocketknife in the first place. While that idea borders on heresy to many of us aficionados, my grandmother lived to be 99 without ever owning one. It breaks down to this.

Manufacturing companies, in order to stay in business, need to constantly be making something in order to be profitable. The machines are expensive, the cost of housing them and having skilled workers available to run them is expensive. If they are not producing product, they are loosing money. You cannot run a company and say to your workers, "Well, we might need you a couple days this week and maybe the Friday after next too, but basically you can get all the work done in 40 hours over the next month so that's all we need you for."

The question then becomes, "We've sold all the Delica's we can, our warehouse is full, our dealers are all heavily stocked. What do we do now?" If you want your company to be successful, if you want to keep you employees employed, you need to have other items you can produce that people want to buy. Yes, Spyderco caters to the collectors by bringing out new variants of the same model that aren't really 'needed', but remember we can live a happy life to a ripe old age without even owning a single pocket knife...well, I guess not 'as happy'.

So yeah, there's a thousand and one ways to cut stuff, with a purple handled knife, or one with Cruwear, or the fancy one with sculpted titanium scales. The answer to the question of Nick's "Why?" is; because we can and as a corollary the people in charge are answering; because I think it will sell and I can keep my business running profitably. It's a great time to be alive when I have nothing more important to worry about than if I want the titanium handled Chaparral, the carbon fiber one, or maybe I'll save up for the whole set. I'm not worrying about starving to death, or if the chicken will lay an egg tonight so I get to eat breakfast.

Grizz

[brainfriction]

The custom shop idea is nice, but I can see why they don't do it that way. From a manufacturing perspective it's easier to set everything up, and then knock them all out at once. With so many models, they'd probably need another factory just to handle all the custom orders. That's just my speculation, I could be wrong.

If you can dream they can build it? Talk about a rabbit hole...

:D

[talesk]

The custom shop idea is nice, but I can see why they don't do it that way. From a manufacturing perspective it's easier to set everything up, and then knock them all out at once. With so many models, they'd probably need another factory just to handle all the custom orders. That's just my speculation, I could be wrong.

I like the idea too, but it seems like a very difficult thing to do given the variety in just the pm2, para3 and Delica lineups. Way more choices than other manufacturers. Would they offer new things or one off items? If you can dream they can build it? Talk about a rabbit hole...

Depends on scope and service level agreement. We are in a very instant / on demand society but if they set expectations accordingly and have open communication as to status I think most reasonable people can wait... Especially if it is a grail to the customer.

Start with one model out of golden (para3?) and see how it goes.

Even if I have to wait 3 months for say the cruwear batch of knives it would be worth it for me. I am international and playing games with American knife shops is tiresome. I would much rather just give spyderco my money and maybe help make more jobs at spyderco in the process.