Blackntan,
There are market forces at play here that you are not understanding. A $1000.00 welder MAY cost 150.00 to produce, give or take. I happen to know that our spool guns come from the same factory that Miller's does in China. Ours are priced greatly different. Ours is $399, and for the "same" gun, although our is adapated for our machine, from Miller, it lists for 710.00 We are turning a handsome profit. Millers' buy in point is obviously going to be even lower than ours because of their volume. They just simply choose to charge what the traffic will allow...at least the traffic they want.
The Thermal ARC S95 is a 95 amp welder which is quite popular from China, (for the sake of Yomax I won't mention the factories name,). They are marketing that unit at nearly the same price as our PowerARC 200. It doesn't handle 6010 very well and is lower in duty cycle. Yet though it is a good factory, and good product it isn't any better made than ours. And their buy in is definitely a small fraction of what they sell it for, if I am not mistaken.
This translates well into other product lines as well. Miller may sell a product at 3 to 5 times the cost of what it takes to produce it easily. Yet, I believe what you see even in this thread has become akin to stockholm syndrome, protecting the people that are hurting you the most, because they extend a little affection after they beat you up. This may be an extreme comparison, so I apologize ahead of time... A better analogy is if you'll shop around, you'll find even in my small time town where I live vast, significant price differences from different autoparts stores, and they are selling the same product. Yet the more expensive stores thrive and even offer less services. There's a certain feeling that people get from this, a false security that makes them think that even though the product is from the same company that made it, same part number etc, that it is really somehow better.
I just bought a computer from Wal Mart last night. I shopped around all day for it as mine went kaput. I found a nice HP laptop. I had gone to other computer stores, selling the same brand and wanted me to pay 300.00 more than what I paid for this HP, even though it was the same brand. When I bought this one, I paid 498.00 for it. It had 320gb hardrive, webcam, 17.3 inch monitor, 4 gb of ram, DVD multi layer reader writer, Dual core processor etc. The same features at one store, was well over 700.00 to 800.00
Yes Miller, Lincoln and others are all good companies. But they are not here to give you anything for free or become some nostalgic, grandfatherly company. They are here to make money and make the most that they can... off you. Nothing wrong with it...not from my perspective. They do offer services that our company can't and doesn't wish to provide. But all those nice show trucks and large congregations of peoples and lunches out between sales shows with Execs of other companies are paid for courtesy of your pocket book....
So, I'd disagree with your assessment. Times have changed. Maybe a few years ago, when the playing field was level and all products were made here, a big difference would have existed in a 300.00 and 1000.00 product. But enter unions, higher wages, less production, higher corporate salaries, huge ad campaigns and you have an inflated product that offers little advantage over a cheaper product that does not contend with those problems.
As far as an infomercial, these forums exist for the reason of profit. I am sure Muhammed doesn't work for free. Every one of these forums has a sponsor, and advertising is throughout. I am here to offer what advice I can, and when there is a question about welding, or my product to offer an answer based in reason and experience.
My background is agriculture, growing up. I grew up in a tractor dealership, and later on worked in another in college, and became a farm equipment rep for a large company in TN. If you'll read in the other forums, I participate there as well when I have knowledge or something helpful to contribute.
,but if you shot all of us like that,well...