4. Some say it's just business, and it's all about the bottom line.

Well first and foremost, go screw yourself if this is how you think. Go buy some Inline Skates, get a job on wall street, and line up like the rest of the clones. Skateboarders have always driven the skateboard business with passion, pride, and love for the sport. Just because a few skaters grew up, got rich, forgot their roots, or sold their company to some big public companies whose very philosophy and profit requirements don't work in skateboarding, doesn't mean that the skaters buying their products have lost their love for skateboarding. Of course skateboard companies are in business to make profit, just like any business, but historically they have always drawn a line when it comes to damaging the very core of their industry. Skateboarders want skaters to design their skateparks, run their magazines, design their shoes, film their videos, build their skateparks, run their contests, and so on and so forth. Why would skateboarders now want to have toy companies making their skate decks, especially when there are skater owned and run woodshops all around them. If turning a skateboard deck into a mass produced commodity is what skaters want, then we should get rid of your DC's, your Etnies, your Volcom's etc...., close all the real skateshops and just go buy some Sketchers and Tommy Hilfiger wear at a sporting goods store. Then, we should cancel 411 video magazine and just buy repeats of the X Games on DVD. Why even have skateboard magazines? We can just try and get some coverage in Sports Illustrated, and be another jock sport. If we are not special as skaters, and decide to adapt the same profit first mentality of the rest of the lame ass jocko sports out there, then there is no reason for skaters to try to maintain their own identity.

When skaters stop riding boards made by skaters, it is just business, and a lame one at that. Remind those who have forgotten the love they had for skateboarding, and send them packing, and tell the publicly owned conglomerates trying to sell you Chinese crap that you'd rather buy your skateboards from skaters, not wall street. They are only using your money to fund their wealth, and will damage skateboarding forever. There are plenty of well priced American Alternatives to Chinese made skateboards if price is your main concern. There really is no reason whatsoever to kill the American Skateboard Manufacturing industry other than greed of a few companies that never built woodshops here, and they are starting to drive companies who've made their own boards here overseas feeling the need to compete with this lunacy, but not us-we will die first. They are causing a panic in the industry, and though things will never be the same after this has started, we also as skaters are ultimately in control of where this whole thing goes. Please choose wisely, or you may have few choices in the future. Skateboarders making the right choices for several generations has kept our precious activity out of the control of clueless dorks for 30+ years, and I don't think just because we have gained some sort of mainstream acceptance, that we should let these dorks do anything but watch us from a distance, confused as always.

To me, it's about skateboarding first, and profit second. I've made lots of money and I've lost lots of money in the skateboard business. I can tell you from first hand experience, it's just as fun to skate when you are poor as when you are rich, and when you are poor, you have lots more time to skate, which often means you are having more fun than the rich guy. I guess being poor sometimes has it's benefits, and I can still skate a lot better than most of my rich competitors, and I know I am having more fun. Supporting American made skateboards is helping keep skateboarders in charge of skateboarding, which keeps skateboarders looking after the best interest of each other. This keeps those who look only to profit off skateboarding away from us, which in turn keeps the mainstream public from turning skateparks into tennis courts with plastic ramps. What next--uniforms? Skateboarders supporting skateboarders is what has made skateboarding such a different and enjoyable thing to do.

Let the mainstream companies fund pro skate contest purses, so they can advertise their candy, soft drinks, etc.. and so pro skaters can earn a decent living when they compete etc..., but keep them away from the soul that lets us enjoy something that mainstream jocks will never understand. A skateboard deck is the very soul of skateboarding. Please don't sell our soul. It's one of the only things we have left to hold on to, and it's one of the only things that makes skateboarding cool, despite all the attempts to sterilize it.