Hey everyone,

  Not sure if this question has been posed before, but does anyone else think that decreasing ball performance might be a case of planned obsalescense on the part of manufacturers?
 In the earlier days of bowling, most balls could be used for a decade without ever losing performance. Heck, I could throw some of my old urethane stuff a gravel road through an oil slick and it would still keep on kicking. Yet, some of today's materials seem to completely bite the dust after 40 games if you don't dedicated an hour to cleaning them after every 3 games.
 Do you think that this can just be chalked up to the different materials being used these days, or do you think that manufacturers are purposely using vulnerable materials, knowing full-well that they are going to break down and require replacement? After all, why produce balls that will last for 10 years when you can produce balls that last for six months and still have the public waiting in line to buy something new?
 What are your thoughts?
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Bowling is without a doubt the dumbest, most pointless, most idiotic excuse for a game that has ever been invented. So, what time are we bowling tomorrow?

good analby, ICE - but
I agree that there must be some measure of truth in the planned obsolescence scenario.
Although some coverstocks undoubtedly hold up better than others, surely the manufacturers MUST test each coverstock more than 100 games each!


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Bowling? Of course it's a sport.

Gene,

Don't let the illegimiti get to you. If you think about this too much, it will make you paranoid.

I think this is more like civil servants. If you've ever dealt with government employees at the federal, state or municipal level for any length of time, you'd think they were all out to get you personally. WHile it may seem that way at times, all it winds up being is sheer laziness and trying to avoid doing their job. (Now, of course, this does not apply to all of them, but it does seem to apply to most of them.) They spend more effort and time trying to get out of doing their job than they do in just doing it. As a result, you, the customer, get the run aaround and feel more like a victim than anything else.

I think it's the same with these new balls. While their chemists do a good job of inventing technology, for the most part, I think there is a totally inadequate job done in testing the technology and its applications. I mean, I think manufacturers put FAR more effort into the colors and the smells (Hello, Storm!) than they do in testing the balls for reaction and for durability. How many manufacturers actually tell you what the ball will do under various conditions, for which bowlers is the ball useful, under which conditions and are correct. Why do all the manufacturers have professional bowlers testing these balls instead of several Joe Average bowler? AND, in this case, I mean Joe, the 200 average league bowler. He is the guy, after all, who they try to sucker into buying 49 balls a year, not the PBA memeber who gets them (virtually) free.


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"Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it."