To label ALL of the analog enthusiasts as cheap individuals is unfair and insulting to say the very least. Many of the analog guys WERE contributing members to the forum and many of us also contributed huge amounts of our personal time and experience to make the forum a place to want to come to. Money alone will not make a bbs fly. There must be content and personnel to attract people to the board and keep them coming back.
If you want to talk about what people can and can not afford to buy with their money, you should think before hitting the submit button. Much of TASCAM's original analog line-up of larger format mixers and open reel gear was aimed squarely at the lower end of the professional studio market place, meaning, people who earned a living by using the gear. Why you see fit to group a hobbyist recorder into the same level of customer escapes my comprehension. Should we analog enthusiasts be vilified because we have a love for the sound quality of analog gear and use our money to purchase it second hand because of there being no other way of getting it? Is it our fault that they made sturdy analog gear that could last 25 years or more? Should we throw our working analog gear in the garbage just to make you happy?
Studer and Otari, who do still offer highest end, professional analog gear do so because there is a remaining professional client base out there to purchase their products.
The recording world went digital because of emerging technologies that allowed end users the opportunity to have more tracks and more automation but not necessarily better sound or at least the character of analog sound which many people with real ears still appreciate and prefer.
The last time I looked, the store shelves were loaded with cheap digital software and hardware products aimed at getting people into computer based, digital recording for well under $1000 for a program and sound-card to facilitate home multi-tracking and in many cases, these products could be had for under $100 for those on the tightest of budgets.
TASCAM and others knew that they couldn't continue to offer entry level, semi-pro analog gear at several times the price of digital and made their own marketing decision to abandon analog.
Cheers!