Yikes Don.
First off, you're talking about this as though it's some grand conspiracy or personal affront to you. There is no "lie." Taylor will still provide a box (roughly 25ish copies) of first-of-year catalogs to dealers who want them. That's a print cost they're willing to incur for the dealers. Mailing them directly to what has to be millions of people is an outlandish request. Sure, they could take a survey and see if people are willing to pay but when it comes time to print copies you aren't footing the underlying cost of print plates, mock-ups, test runs, etc and there aren't enough people willing to pay to offset the cost of printing them.
In any business decision a company makes, there will be detractors, especially in a business largely attached to people resistant to any change about anything. People complain about 3-piece necks, the ES2, V-class bracing, urban-sourced woods, on and on. Y'all clearly don't remember what Taylor is about, which is constantly moving forward. They've always innovated and changed ahead of other brands, which is why we still have ebony fretboards, koa, mahogany, and other things. You have no idea what it really takes to make guitars. I sat at a table and listened to Bob Taylor talk about the political side of wood with CITES and all the things they have to do to keep track of everything and try to educate politicians around the world on wood so they don't ban all of a genus like they did with Indian rosewood a few years ago. Know why that got undone? Taylor. Between growing, harvesting, processing, shipping, and building there are literally thousands of people in steps in building guitars and it's daunting the more I learn. If you want to throw in the towel because they didn't consult you individually before cancelling print, that's fine dude. But you have no idea where that money they're saving goes. It's not corporate greed, it's keeping the company healthy so it survives.
"Gabriel has a vested interest (his job) in putting together a digital version no matter what. He has no interest or inclination to continue the printed version. To that end, he will do anything in his power to sink that ship. He is not only creating a new product, he is also founding his own fiefdom with his personal serfs. That's how corporate ladder stuff works." - this is just ridiculous mate. I don't have a "vested interest" in anything. There is no corporate ladder, I own my own company and don't work at Taylor. They're a client of my company, but so are other larger brands. I'm also just a big guitar nerd and longtime player who also spent nearly 20 years as a dealer and tech before I went into marketing full time. It has no affect on me at all if they stop printing W&S - they're gonna be my client either way, though I'm sure it does free up budget to do other things.
As I said, I was just in the PNW with Bob and others. These guys are putting all their time and resources into figuring out how to grow better wood in the future, grow it ethically, harvest it ethically, so in the next 25, 50, 100 years there will even be guitar wood. We're closer than you think to that being a problem and they won't be alive to see the results of what they're doing. They'll never know if it worked, but they're putting their money where their mouth is and trying and no one else in the entire industry is doing that. I'm proud to be a small part of telling the story through video.
In marketing, needs change. When I worked in a guitar shop they were spending $1500 a month on print Yellow Pages phone book advertising, which was insane. I convinced the owner to kill that by asking him a question and watching him Google it from his phone. I then built the store a new website and invested in SEO instead. Times change and even the big retailers no longer send huge print catalogs like they used to. I used to get weekly stuff from Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, etc but they stopped. I haven't stopped shopping.
As far as the environmental impact of digital content, it's far less than cutting down all the trees to make paper, which is affecting the availability of wood to make guitars with. I just got back from the Pacific Northwest and there's not an infinite supply of massive trees. Most of them are now gone and it's largely for lumber and paper. Toilet paper, paper towels, notebooks, magazines. So yeah you cling to print all you want, but remember that tree could have been a guitar instead.
