What can we do about Skyride?

I thought of an interesting analogy which has found its way into our lives. In my opinion it’s a huge marketing scam, and has wormed its way into most Americans lives. I’m thinking about credit cards. We don’t need the damn things, and regardless of what anyone thinks, it does cost every one of us to use them. I run a DZ, and virtually have to accept plastic, and pay a fee for doing so. It costs me (you) $.40 to run a debit transaction, and .20 plus 1.8% to process a credit transaction, all this plus a base monthly charge. Business being what it is, and this being an expense of normal business these days, these costs are passed along to the customer, and generally passed along to every customer regardless of payment method. Some small businesses at least have taken the initiative to pass the expense along to only those who choose to “take advantage of the convenience” of plastic. Ironically (or not so), when the 3% cost is made apparent to the customer, the vast majority choose to avoid it like the plague that it is! One of my regulars insisted for a year that he “needed” to pay with his plastic because it made his accounting so easy. I say for a year, because I decided to increase my prices, then give a cash discount. Interestingly when the cost of the convienance was passed along to “Mr. Plastic” he no longer needed the convienance. This may be a little harsh, but when someone hands me a credit card for payment they’re saying “fuck you” as they’re cusing me additional expense. I in turn return the sentiment by saying “Oh, you get to pay full price.” Aka “no, fuck you.”


I know I’m off topic. The tie in is that we’re all lazy, McDonalds drive through convenience oriented these days. Skyride takes advantage of this, as anyone willing to do the very basic leg work, and spend an extra 5 to 10 minutes will educate themselves enough as to not fall into the Skyride trap. Many DZOs are also lazy (regardless of how hard they all work!). It may require a few hours of time initially and a few dollars, but setting up par per click advertising, so the customer will ALWAYS see an add for a real DZ every time they see one for the Skyride sites is a no brainier!! Also, there are a whole lot of crappy DZ web sites out there! Every DZO should take the time, and/or spend the money to put up a nice, modern, and efficient web site! Also do the basics to make sure that our web sites perform well in natural results with the search engines.

Even USPA refuses to do very basic web site optimization! I’ve asked, and was told “We’re work’n on it.” That was a couple of years ago. I know that Jan Meyer has also pressed USPA to do basic optimization to no avail, and she’s on the BOD!

Sadly I’m preach’n to the quire here. Have a good day, and pay with cash!

Martin