You are over complicating it. Just have the TD disconnect the feature or the Wi-Fi. Easy Peasy since we already make a bunch of adjustments for tournament play.

You guys are over reacting. What you outline, while technically possible is impractical on so many levels for the foreseeable future.

If Stern starts selling machines that brick without the internet, the industry dies almost instantly.
But no network = base mode is fine for tournaments, which is what you were worried about above.

The golden tee example works because they have a value added network behind it and ops are willing to share revenues to increase their sales. GT can take up to 30% of the rev, but you get CC processing, course updates and challenges, interactive tournaments, advertising and location services, and some other stuff.

If Stern developed similar value added features for a fee, there would definitely be interest.

A lot of your own opinions and assumptions built into that long comment.

My rebuttal is only the observation that Stern is selling twice the number of LEs at 40% higher prices than just a couple of years ago. So either Gary or Seth is smarter than the Pinside whiner brigade.

We have no idea how it will turn out but I’m interested in watching it unfold.

Did Seth sleep with your girlfriend or something?

Why should they as long as people are paying for them?

If the marginal revenue is there they are going to continue to raise the price.

They aren’t in business to make you feel better about the price of a machine. They are there to make money by selling machines.

You are right, when NIB sales start sliding, we’ll see how good their management team is.

It’s not just about reading the tea leaves, it’s how well they have set up the company for down cycles.

By creating demand that can support 1,000+ LEs to generate $4 million ‘extra’ revenue over pros, signs point to they know what they are doing.

Using todays cash to lock in cheaper long term rent, seems like they have a plan.

Six Sigma isn't something that the front line workers need to be trained on or worry about in a manufacturing org. Although they are frequently introduced to the concept so they feel engaged in the process and understand there will be future changes on operations due to it.

In layman terms it is a statistical method to measure errors and reliability in a process so you can identify areas or sub-processes to improve in order to reduce errors.

It's a hell of a lot more effective than listening to a user forum for all the anecdotal stories.

It was actually invented at Motorola so I'm sure there were a lot of growing pains there. In the 90's and 2000's there were a lot of hacks out doing six-sigma consulting for companies that didn't really embrace it.

I have used the concepts in my technology teams. I've found that when they are applied in a targeted area known for issues, it works pretty well. But trying to roll it out broadly and an over arching management tool for everything is less effective.

Do you also stop reading when someone says Boomer?