>> Is Nike so far ahead of every other shoe manufacturer? From personal experience, yes. Easily. It's like comparing a Wal-Mart 'First Act' electric guitar to

>> Is Nike so far ahead of every other shoe manufacturer? From personal experience, yes. Easily. It's like comparing a Wal-Mart 'First Act' electric guitar to a Fender Stratocaster, or one of those awful Crosley turntables to a pair of Technics SL-1200s. I have particularly sensitive feet, and ride a push scooter everywhere so cheap soles will wear quickly. I'll go through 4 pairs of $30 knockoff shoes a year instead of buying a pair of Nikes for $100 and enjoying them for three or more years. I live in Toronto and make my pilgramage to the actual Nike retail outlet in the Eaton's centre once a year to see what's new, try things on, and buy just one pair of shoes between $100-200. As a result, my closet is full of stylish, comfortable shoes that have lasted years and years. :) YMMV, but honestly the same goes for Apple for me. I'm still using a G5 tower from 2005 with 16GB RAM and 2x1TB SSD's on the daily. I paid a couple grand for that back in the day (with about 4GB RAM originally and a 120GB HDD, I believe)...I don't have a single PC tower or laptop left except a hackintoshed Lenovo that's only a couple years old, despite buying a bunch. Nike is not 'so far ahead' of every other shoe manufacturer, but, similar to Apple, they are only comparable in any way to similarly-priced manufacturers of their tier - Adidas, Reebok, or Microsoft Surface, Alienware. The Surface is probably the only portable I've had the pleasure to use that is comparable to the build quality and feel of Apple's manufacturing. Gucci, for example; is a company that represents true excess for the sake of excess. (What's that Lil' Pump line? 'Spent 10k on my Gucci bed sheets'?) As an iOS dev for a living, I think the 30% is bullshit. But from what I've read/heard, it's based off something similar to retail margins.