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The return of the Underpants Gnomes

Posted by Rob Doorack on May 23, 2009 at 20:04:59:
One of the best episodes of "South Park" involves little men called Underpants Gnomes. The Gnomes sneak into boys' bedrooms at night and steal their underwear. The Gnomes eventually explain that they're businessmen and that the underwear thefts are part of their brilliant business plan which they describe as:

Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!

Every attempt over the years by people like you to explain how extending trade discounts to audio writers causes unethical behavior has always been a lot like the Underpants Gnomes' business plan. It invariably goes like this:

Phase 1: Discount
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Corruption!

OK, so why don't you have at it now? Please explain exactly how the opportunity to get a discount on gear that you want to own anyway and have to keep for a year and can't resell at a profit directly causes either 1) undeserved positive reviews of crap equipment or 2) undeserved negative reviews of good equipment (obviously, those two possibilites are what must be prevented). When I bought my Dynavector 10X4 cartridge at a discount - to cite one example - how exactly did that affect my judgement and reviews of the Spacedeck or the HeadRoom Deluxe or the Naim CD3 or any of the other equipment I subsequently evaluated?