modelmaker66
Maybe all the good questions are already asked and there is nothing left to say.
I think there may be more truth to that then their perhaps seems to be on the surface. The internet has expanded exponentially the last ten years. These days, a kit barely has to get off the boat and clear customs before there are 5 Youtube videos looking it over posted. Tips, techniques, and reviews are everywhere. You don't have to ask, or even know another modeler these days to get good info.
The internet is also quickly eroding the print media. FSM's circulation is maybe half of what it was in its heyday, and that is even considering they have been the only general scale modeling mag in the US for many years. So you have a forum tied to a magazine that simply not many people are reading any more.
Efforts by print to save itself have mostly boiled down to charging for internet content, which has almost always proven to be spectacular failures when tried. No one wants to pay any real $$$s for internet content. Advertising content in the mag is way, way, way down too. And that's not a good thing, by the way. Ads are a sign of hobby and magazine health. Their lack indicates otherwise. Except for a few of the big players, FSM is almost devoid of ads these days.
And FSM is highly dependent on them. That's why most of their model 'reviews' are not really all that useful. They have to softball them, so what advertisers there are keep coming back, no matter how horrid the kits actually were.
Whether people realize it or not, we are/were living in a golden age for the hobby, where the selection and quality of available kits have never been better. At the same time, it is very difficult on manufacturers these days. Most of the 'low hanging fruit' that would justify the tooling expenses has been done to death already.
One of the things that undoubtedly changed the industry was the entry of the Chinese manufacturers in the 90s. They were making stuff no one else would, and in large numbers. But I think they have been hurt by their own success now - the easy pickings are gone for subjects. Dragon in particular seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel these days, due to the vast amount of armor kits they have put out the last 20 years or so. They are relying on prototypes and one offs, and stuff even your usual SGF has never heard of. That makes it tough going when you have to pay the tooling costs on something so obscure up front. But what else is left for them to do that would be a great seller?
It doesn't help that they seem to have stopped caring about what crap they put in the box. Whether you are just an assembler, or a rivet counter, the Dragon M103s were a disgrace in a box. And they were charging top prices for such a half baked kit, when they have better efforts cheaper in their own product line. I wonder where they go from here, especially in armor.
I think you can see this in the kit wish listing that goes on annually in the mag, and online all the time. The lists sure have changed over the last 30+ years! In the old days, there was a fair amount of stuff that could still be done. Once in a while now there is something that might justify the tooling costs, a few that might make it as shorts runs, but most of the 'suggestions' are of stuff the manufacturers may just as well flush their money down the toilet, set their facility on fire, and shoot themselves afterwards. That 1/32 Farley Fruitbat modelers are just dying for in surveys is never going to be worth tooling. If it does get released and has a rivet misplaced, it gets savaged in reviews and sells poorly to the 'informed' hbby crowd they are relying on for most of the sales. Then there are cases of stuff like the Monogram 1/48 JU-52 people just had to have...and sat on shelves when actually released.
'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...' Things may never have been better than they were in the last few years, but the industry is changing again. It is going to be increasingly tough for manufacturers to stand out with products that are commercially viable. I saw this with overproduction and too many players in the train hobby starting around 2000, and the train side of the hobby has steadily eroded since. Will the hobby disappear? I don't think it's all gloom and doom, but I think it is going to be more end times for some, and consolidation for others. I think the big boost from the Chinese players entering the market has run its course now. We'll see where it goes from here.