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How will the COVID-19 pandemic affect sites like Audiogon?

One would think that with social distancing and shelter in place policies, there has never been a better time for upgrading and enjoying your audio system.   But is now the time to buy and sell?  The mass unemployment and economic distress accompanying the pandemic seems certain to undermine what is essentially a luxury market encompassing both gearheads and music lovers?  What effects on buying and selling audio gear — both short and long term — can we foresee?
merlin
yyzsantabarbara
5,056 posts
 
NOBODY needs to hear more of this bad news.HELLO !!!!!!!
I have no problem reading about it. Don’t read these comments if they hurt your sensibilities.

nonoise, I am a very sensitive person, but the constant liberal drivel about how F. U. our response has been doesn’t sit well with me. I am an independent, so no bias one way or the other. A month ago no one really saw this hitting the U.S. like it did, arm chair quarterbacking is always 20 20. Otherwise a lot of us would have deep 6’d our stock holdings.
I actually did know this was coming to where I live. Santa Barbara, CA. I spoke with my wife in January and told her we need to be careful since there are a lot of kids from the university living in our neighbourhood. I also cancelled my squash games at the university rec center in January since I was afraid of bring some virus home to my kid. You do not need to be a genius to see this coming.

If you do some research and learn the causes of the Italian outbreak it is easy to see the co-relation. Similar to how Zika went to Brazil.

The second thing I said about Covaid-19 was that the biggest concern I had was the buffoon in charge in the USA. So far I am 2 for 2.

Saying all of this I am optimistic about the situation since people are doing their best to be smart, at least where I live.

With regards to the OP question about how it affects A’gon. I was getting ready to spend about $50K+ wasting money on an audio system. That is a big no go today.

simao's avatar
simao
1,855 posts
 
@jetter "Otherwise a lot of us would have deep 6'd our stock holdings"   

You mean like Senators Loeffler and Burk, right?

As for this site, I think it'll do fine. If it could weather the immediate post-9/11 and the 2008 recession, it should pull through this.
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Jetter
That is likely the couple of days I waited too long myself, lulled as you say.
Or being greedy
Take your pick.
Still I could be a lot worse off than I am right now and for that I am eternally grateful.

I know there are many not so fortunate, my next door neighbor is 80 not that you would say so by looking at him and how active he is but, he told me he is near bankruptcy right now. He was asleep at the wheel unfortunately .
And he is not taking many precautions despite my warnings to him.
Very worrying.
As I am sure there are many more examples of older stubborn people out there, been there, done that, seen it all before.
Not a good time here in the USA at all.
jetter
3,098 posts
 
yyzsantabarbara, my daughter received her PHD in chemistry from Univ Cal Santa Barbara.  I was a Seal and Huntington Beach guy until moving to Vermont a lot of years ago..

I actually had a more optimistic viewpoint on how all of this was going to play out.  In fact, until a few days ago I was thinking it would be gone by spring.
yyzsantabarbara
5,056 posts
 
I had no idea of how long this would last. 

The following article is about 3 years old.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/health/flu-pandemic-sanjay-gupta/index.html



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