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I don't think the hobby is in trouble so much as the retailers are in trouble. And that's certainly not particular to MRR. Example: My wife does scrapbooking, which is about as hot and current a hobby as you can get. And yet every craft/scrapbook retailer near us has gone under over the past few years. Why? Because of the mail-order and internet retailers who advertise in the glossy hobby magazines... sound familiar? Not to mention that E-Bay continues to be a force in driving costs down at all sales channels. If you can go buy one of her trimmer-things at the local craft store for $20 + 6-8% sales tax, or at the mail order place for $15 + $4 shipping and no tax, or at the Internet retailer for $13 + $3 shipping and no tax, or on E-Bay for $7.50 and $5 shipping and no tax, where ya' gonna go? I'll wager it's probably one of the latter three depending on your particular sensitivities and preferences. If the hobby itself is dying, why do we have more breadth of product than ever, with more innovation, more technology and variety? Would all the manufacturers continue to invest in tooling, marketing and such if they weren't moving product to justify it? Heck no! And (at risk of starting a holy war) IMO it's all at better quality and prices (corrected for inflation please!) than at any time in my 30 years of hobbying-memory.
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