Is Business Slow There Too?

[River Valley Computer]

My target market is professional people making at least $75,000/year and small businesses. I have some regular people, sure. But they can't afford anything anyway and they're a small part of my client base. I would guess that the percentage of my clients that work minimum wage jobs is less than 1%. These people don't need (and frankly can't afford!) a computer. People with more money generally have more disposable income. Even if they primarily use their phones and tablets, they still maintain a computer.

That I find a very offensive statement. saying that people on minimum wage don't need a computer. What about their children that are in school that need to do their schoolwork on the computer at home. Granted these people may not live in $529,000 homes(I don't either) but they still are raising a family on minimum wages.

Roku.

Yep that would be great but when the maximum speed we can get in a lot of areas is only 1.5MB that won't happen.

I'm not trying to make our area to sound like it is in poverty - it's not. It is in an area of Arkansas with the most beautiful scenery ever and due to that there are lots of mountains and bodies of water causing problems getting hi-speed internet to the house. In town no problem. (Also not as many people with HOT AIR!)

 

[DataMedics]

I said maximum flexibility

I've got a Roku in every TV. Bedroom, living room, basement, etc. Haven't needed to plug a laptop into my TV in many years.

But then, I live in a city with 200Mb/s internet available.

 

[DataMedics]

Yep that would be great but when the maximum speed we can get in a lot of areas is only 1.5MB that won't happen.

That depends on which Roku you buy. If you have a Roku 1 or the stick it's got very little memory for buffering. The Roku ultra will buffer 10+ minutes and can keep playing during a router reboot without missing a beat. Just costs extra money.

 

[sapphirescales]

That I find a very offensive statement. saying that people on minimum wage don't need a computer. What about their children that are in school that need to do their schoolwork on the computer at home.

You've never worked for minimum wage in modern times, have you? If someone with a minimum wage job even has kids, they're using the school computers, a friend's, or the computers at the library. They can't afford a computer! When you have to choose between food and a computer, food comes first. I'm sure they'd love to have a computer. But it's just not realistic. Same thing when it comes to a car. Most have to use public transportation. You really can't afford jack sh*t on minimum wage.

Minimum wage used to actually buy a basic level of life. But inflation is WAAAAAAAAAAAY higher than the official numbers, and the minimum wage hasn't even kept up with the official rate of inflation. If you worked a minimum wage job 20 or even 10 years ago, it's 2x harder nowadays compared to back then.

 

[sapphirescales]

I've got a Roku in every TV. Bedroom, living room, basement, etc. Haven't needed to plug a laptop into my TV in many years.

But then, I live in a city with 200Mb/s internet available.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to own more than one TV. Some don't even own a TV at all. I can think of at least a dozen clients off the top of my head that don't own a TV and only watch TV through their laptops. Being able to watch everything you could want on a laptop and being able to take that laptop to any room or on the road is way more flexible than even having half a dozen TV's with Roku's spread throughout your house. And a lot of people either can't afford all those TV's or just don't need them or want to spend the money on them when they have a laptop they can use instead.

 

[ell]

Anyone that actually needs to do anything other than consume content uses computers. Want to write a document? Computer. Want to send an email that doesn't read like a SMS text? Computer. Want to watch Netflix with a big screen and maximum flexibility? Computer. Do you work somewhere that actually pays a living wage? You need a computer to do your job. Students, people working at Walmart and other dead-end jobs, and old people that only need to check email and look at recipes are the only ones that don't need a computer. If those are your target market, you're in trouble.

There are plenty of people that NEED computers. Phones and tablets just aren't an option. And even if they could do everything a computer can do, their form factor reduces productivity and people quickly go back to their computers after they realize that what used to take them 10 minutes now takes over an hour.

My target market is professional people making at least $75,000/year and small businesses. I have some regular people, sure. But they can't afford anything anyway and they're a small part of my client base. I would guess that the percentage of my clients that work minimum wage jobs is less than 1%. These people don't need (and frankly can't afford!) a computer. People with more money generally have more disposable income. Even if they primarily use their phones and tablets, they still maintain a computer.

And think of it this way. Smartphones and tablets have been around for 10 years now (8 if you only count the iPad). Those that were going to switch have already switched. It won't get much worse than this.

I hope so, this kind of confirms it with the forecast drop in tablets sales, interesting https://www.statista.com/statistics...forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/

 

[Adept PC Repair]

I'm all out, turning customers down because I can't fit them in.

Working the nights as well as day to fit everything in.