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Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

amateurphotographer.com

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Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

If your country’s industrial and defense policy relies on individual consumers making choices that are worse for them on almost all metrics, it’s time to think about on worse payroll your politicians are.

> who’s payroll your politicians are on

It doesn’t even have to be foreign - it can just be corrupt self interest.

What other explanation is there for attacking Venezuela and Iran?

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#262
post #16

I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China. Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?

A whole bunch of American and Western multinational companies design hardware in Western countries and manufacture them in China. The manufacturing isn’t usually the most valuable part of the value chain. E.g., Apple makes the most money when you sell you an iPhone, not their Chinese and Indian factory suppliers and assemblers. GoPro isn’t failing because they’re an American brand. They’re failing because they’re mis…

That’s a great list of targets to kill. Things like Vitamix should get undercut by 300 % with same or better quality.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#263
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoPro is a US company designed in U.S. with manufacturing in Thailand, China, and Mexico. Insta360 is a Chinese company designed in Shenzhen and built there, too. People think this doesn’t matter, but GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. A similar pattern happened with drones with DJI, intentionally killing all non-Chinese dro…

> GoPros are used all over in aerospace. If we replaced the brand with Insta360, that puts a big attack vector all over the place. What would the attack vector be? I’m not saying there isn’t any, I don’t know much about aerospace and this sounds interesting.

> What would the attack vector be?

The cameras. But quite how, I don’t know.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#264
post #151

didn't they moved actual hardware production elsewhere outside of US? typical story. first move out production, loose core competency, let competitors copy it with own brands in own jurisdictions, and shut down business.

American manufacturing is a rounding error, especially when it comes to consumer electronics. Western manufacturing can't compete with a Shenzhen. Our supply lines suck , our labour is too expensive for any kind of manual work, and we didn't bother to invest in automation as decades of outsourcing made our manufacturers focus on low-volume high-margin products. No need to steal when our own companies willingly export…

This sounds like a choose your path story…

You are a country. You have to decide on your country’s economic model before starting the game. Choose:

- a free market economy. Companies are unhindered by the state to make their own decisions to maximize shareholder value. Decisions therefore lean towards short term profit margins rather than long term success. Influence of the state via elected politicians on a short term is expensive but effective to ensure you are unhindered by regulation. Success here is not aligned with the long term success of the state.

- a quasi free market where there is partial state ownership and control, but also supports free market principles to encourage private investment. The state will heavily subsidize your economy and decisions can be made to prioritize long term global success rather than short term shareholder value.

- a state controlled and state owned economy. All decisions are made by committee. There are no shareholders apart from the state. Success benefits all within the state. Failure also tied directly to the state. Long term goals are preference over short term goals.

Choose carefully. Once your have made your decision the costs to change it are extremely high and will result in societal and economic collapse.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#265
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reads to me like it's free market doing its job, if you think of countries as companies. US just needs to step up its game.

It's not really a free market when one country is heavily subsidizing it's industries

So ridiculous. So a bit of subsidy is ok, but no more than the US does? As a country that’s suffered from the US subsidising its own industries, my sympathy is zero.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600 Euro. Even at that price point, zooming or panning maps is excruciatingly slow I just got a Garmin Instinct 3 Solar. It does mapping, and cost me about $300 US. You're right that it's slow due to a wimpy processor. But the processor isn't because they're too lazy to innovate, but because they have something sipping tiny amounts of power so…

Sounds like the perfect use-case for big-small processors. A power-sipper for routine 99.99% of operations and a more powerful beast for the CPU intensive ops.

Yes, this ships in basically every smartwatch since the Snapdragon Wear 3100 launched in 2018.

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve owned a lot of Gopro cameras, having done video capture for a variety of motorsports, and they just got too expensive for what you get. Sounds very similar to another US company - Garmin. They are still popular, but have been raising prices a lot every generation, because for a long time there was no real competition [1]. At this point, Garmin watches that have mapping support have an introduction price of >600…

I have a love/hate relationship with Garmin. As a motorcyclist and sailor, their hardware is second to none in terms of build quality and robustness. The ability to look down at my Zumo GPS on my motorcycle in a rain storm on a dirt road and have it respond to my wet dirty glove is a close to magic as you will get. Then there's the watches, the Instinct range is ok but I have a button that doesn't pop back out, my wi…

I think the only sports watch company that has an app that is worse than Garmin's is Polar. I have used Garmin devices since 2010, but their UX is (as you say) pretty quirky. They changed the UI/UX of the gpsmap H1 to look more like a smartphone, but it is still weird. Another issue is that their software has been very buggy the last few years, with software only stabilizing 1-2 years after the release. One the largest external source for Garmin information (gpsrchive) has actively recommended against purchasing the H1 because it has been so buggy. Similarly, earlier firmware releases of the Fenix 8 had a lot of issues. Also a lot of functionality of older units hasn't been implemented yet. These are often not small bugs, but of the type, "oopsie, your device froze or rebooted while you were navigating". They basically released an alpha version as a final product.

I don't know about UX, but I've had my Coros watch for a few weeks now and I didn't find it hard to understand. I think it's much easier than when I first learned to use a Fenix watch. It misses some Garmin features though that I'd really like to see like off-course rerouting. But like I said above, they have been adding features at a good pace and a drastically undercutting Garmin on price (most watches less than half the price of the closest Garmin watch).

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#268
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the US famously never subsidizes any of its industries...

> Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more subsidies than competitors in OECD economies. https://www.oecd.org/en/blogs/2026/06/industrial-subsidies-h...

What’s the level of subsidy that’s ok?

Re: Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there. For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also be…

Unless Canadian prices are much much higher than US, the only Prusa that costs that much is a Core One L or a Prusa XL. Neither one of those are equivalent to a P1S. They’re 2 tiers above it. Equivalent Bambu printers sell for about the same price. I have printers from both companies. There are tradeoffs for each, but Prusa isn’t 4x more for an equivalent printer.

Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).

I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.

Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.

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