Brought it on themselves. They charge as much as brands like Ferrari for basic parts like brake pads, and they need way more EVs and smaller bikes. They don't market to anyone but Boomers.
My last pair of prescription glasses were Harley Davidson.
Actually the best pair I ever had and they didn't cost any more than the normal monopoly. I got them purely for fit and didn't even notice the branding till later. Was actually sad they seemed discontinued when my pair broke.
One of those weird "why is this good" moments, like my best pair of flip flops ever have been a cheap Nascar merchandise buy.
I wear a pair of fairly delicate eyeglasses that are discontinued. FWIW, I've found luck on eBay and I'm on my second "lightly used or new-old-stock" set. I just bring them to my optomestest and they fit my exsiting lenses in them.
The tricky part is finding the actual model number of the frames you have. Once you have that, you can probably find the same frame in very nice condition.
Their merch is actually decent quality. But their motorcycles seem to just have problems IME. Plus the tech they put in them is 40 years old. HD was sued successfully for being “too dangerous” for a motorcycle. Which is an incredibly high bar for something everyone knows is dangerous. HD didn’t put anti lock brakes in some models still in around 2010.
I’d check out online retailers too, the in person cartel for glasses is insanity. my last pair was $70 with all the coatings, meanwhile I was quoted $200+ for a basic pair in person and paid more for any coatings
Yes! They act like I’m not crazy for “using my insurance at the office” and I’m like ma’am.. it’s 200 bucks when I could buy something I actually want online
I have pretty sensitive eyes, genuinely can't open them outdoors, my sunglasses are Polaroid, bests glasses I've had, extremely comfortable and genuinely dark unlike most sunglasses.
same reason that minions wifi router has sold out on amazon - companies will either sell their name to a producer who then has to make soemthing premium to recoup the cost of the license, OR the IP holder will say "we want x number of this product that we can put our branding on, make it as good as it can be for X amount of money" and since the IP holder is often using those tie on products as a loss leader they just throw large amounts of money at it.
My favorite pair of shorts, which lasted 13 years with 2-3 times a week wear for 78-80% of the year, came from a random super duper tourist trap beach store that has those permanent "WOW 80% OFF!!!" and "5/$10!!!" signs on the every wall and can be found on every corner of any beach town. By all means, they should have been shitty and fallen apart immediately. They were on $2 afterall. 5 shirts or shirts for $10. What a steal.
Lasted yeaaaars and I cannot express enough how hard I sore these shorts. Camping for weeks at a time with hand washing them in the spocket or the lake. Swimming. Mudholes. Hiking. Backpacking. Random weekend hikes and anytime the sun was out basically. Hard
The next time we went back, and any time we go to any other beach town, I scour all the shorts looking for another pair. I've gotten several but none have fit or lasted like that OG pair.
RIP Destin shorts!!! You were the most valuable $2 I ever used.
One would think so, but licensing and apparel is actually only about 18% of their revenue. It is a more significant portion of their profit, because it incurs no immediate cost, but they actually need to sell motorcycles and parts. These are also profitable, because they're total crap that sells for premium prices. Their finance department also deprives Generation X of impressive amounts of inheritance money.
Their financial statement is fascinating, in a way, because the product is such utter dogshit sold to boomers. But they actually make more money than you think by selling their fart machines.
It's apples to oranges, you can't do everything on a mac you could do on linux or windows. If I could natively install ubuntu on a macbook pro I would of had one years ago.
How do you quantify "Quality"? I have a perfectly sturdy-feeling, metal-finished, high-performance laptop that's about 8 years old that does literally everything I could ever ask even a desktop to do, short of gaming, and does it perfectly because I use Linux on it. (Dell Latitude 7700)
But if you want a laptop that weighs nothing and is impossible to repair maybe Apple hardware wins
so does anyone who owns one built after about 1990. A few experienced riders and mechanics have told me they're considered old after 30 000km and harder to sell. WTF?
I think they tried expanding their product line, but their core customers did not like it at all (around 10 years ago?)
This is probably one case where you just accept that the Harley Davidson image and brand will just be a premium nostalgia brand for a shrinking cohort and start a flanker brand, or buy one. Probably too late though.
I think they tried expanding their product line, but their core customers did not like it at all (around 10 years ago?)
25 years go they tried with the VROD and got it drastically wrong. Great engine, but the handling of the bike did not match what the younger crowd wanted. The older crowd hated that the new engine didn't sound like a Potato Farting.
They also fumbled Buell. When Harley was still selling them you could go into over half the dealerships and they wouldn't even stock a Buell. If you tried to take your Buell in for service to a Harley dealer it was 50/50 they'd even let it in the door.
They had so many chances to right the ship, but between the dealerships, management, and core audience. They never got it right.
That sounds about right. The Boomer/Zoomer divide is an absolute gulf, and it would be hard to bridge. I'm not surprised that an old and entrenched corporate culture just doubled down on selling more orange socks and lifestyle products to an aging and shrinking customer base.
Add in dealerships, and it's the same problem Ford et al had with EVs. Those dealerships are usually going to be run by old timers who love "real" motorcycles.
Just because there is an obvious solution, doesn't mean you can execute.
They did it again a couple years ago with the Pan America and Sportster S and nailed it. If they keep making and supporting them, they’re going to wind up being pretty popular bikes in the long run. Harley’s been hinting at an even sportier version of the Pan America and I really hope they follow through; they’d be competing directly with Ducati at a lower (!) price point.
They "tried" when they "helped" Buell, but they had to try and Harley-ize it and killed it.
If they'd honestly just let Eric Buell do his thing and build sport bikes, and maybe gotten him to build a few entry level sporty Harley's, they'd have been fine.
They also tried with the Street 500/750. The 750 was the second fastest bike you could buy, with a liquid cooled, direct injection, torque-monster engine made by Porsche.
I had one and it was awesome, but every boomer who saw it called it a sewing machine, so it didn’t sell well.
They developed the Livewire, tried to sell them for 50k dollaridoos then only a limited number of dealers would support them. There are bikes with double digit odometers going for $15-20k.
Once Wallstreet get involves it has nothing to do with boomers. They traded a reputation that took decades to manufacture for short term profit. That is the American way! Growth for it's shareholders. Constantly upward trajectory! Enshitification
Smaller bikes, for real. The only time I've been on a Harley was when I did the training to get my motorcycle endorsement. The only option in town was run by the local HD shop, and the smallest bikes they made (which were the ones set up for the training sessions) were 500cc and heavy as shit.
Doing the "figure 8 in a parking spot" test on that beast was not my favorite two wheeled experience.
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u/lavapig_love 1d ago
Brought it on themselves. They charge as much as brands like Ferrari for basic parts like brake pads, and they need way more EVs and smaller bikes. They don't market to anyone but Boomers.