The article touches on the answer, briefly, about halfway down: The Surf Industry isn't about Surfing.

Most of the things that the big Surf brands make are not useful for the actual act of Surfing. Even boardshorts from the major boardshort companies, about half their range can't be worn surfing. They're made from non-stretch fabric and intended to be worn around on the street.

Google up a "surf shop" in a big coastal town, pick the biggest, most obvious one, and chances are you wouldn't be able to equip yourself to go surfing with the things you can buy there. It'll be wall to wall boardshorts and hoodies, with a hundred pairs of sunglasses along the wall and maybe half a dozen shiny new boards stood up in a corner for decorative purposes. Observe the looks the staff will give each other if you try to ring one of those up.

If you want to go surfing, you need to find the little hole-in-the wall shop off the beach a ways, which will be stuffed full of wetsuits and boards, to the point where you can hardly walk around without knocking half the store down. They'll also have a few hundred pairs of boardshorts there, but surprisingly these ones will all have stretchy fabric and crotches that don't tear apart if you sink to your knees.

The Big Surf Brands know that most of their business comes from selling sunglasses and flip flops to people who want to look like surfers. And they're doing fine.

Most of the best boards don’t come off factory presses instead they are built by someone with great passion in a small warehouse or garage. These guys are happy just getting by and sharing the stoke with customers they know. Moreover, once you become addicted to surfing that’s all one cares about. True surfers don’t care about the hype around the latest thing, once you buy your board and a wetsuit all you care about is getting that glide. If I didn’t have a family to support I’d make the yearly circuit from Sri Lanka, Peru, etc and just live on the beach for less than $10 a day and would be perfectly satisfied. I feel sorry for my office mates who don’t have any hobbies or escapes and instead are focused on the next bonus or promotion either for their egos or so they can buy more stuff. I just want more time off to travel with my family and surf. After 3 startups and 23 years in tech and many, many 12 hour days I can tell you the whole system is empty. Despite recognition or financial success there’s nothing in the system that brings true long term happiness, but the natural meditation when waiting on the wave or for the next set does.

"Surfers, for the most part, don’t need more stuff, don’t want more surfers, don’t care about grabbing attention, etc."

This is actually completely true. I'm friends with a guy who owns a surf shop in one of the highest grossing areas for surfing equipment/clothing in southern california, his biggest gripe with the industry is that surfers spend no money. They won't pay for parking, won't pay for surf apps, won't buy a new board unless they have to, don't really buy the clothes, etc. It's part of the culture.

Edit:

To add to his perspective, it's not about getting wealthy from surfing. The guy has been surfing his whole life, is a lifelong lifeguard, surfs 20 foot waves.

He just wishes the industry could grow and innovate, but instead sees it stagnate. Sure the vibe and love for surfing is there, but I think he is frustrated that there is no wealth in the industry to foster further growth and investment.

But then again, the way I see it is surfing as a sport is extremely limited, you can only do it on coasts, and only some coasts are actually consistently good for it.

The climbing apparel industry is the same way. Patagonia, North Face, Black Diamond and Arcteryx all began as brands that catered specifically to the needs of climbers and alpinists, but now sell primarily to yuppies.

It used to be that if you were wearing Canada Goose, it was because you were on some kind of expedition to the Arctic. Then movie directors decided Canada Goose was the way to go to stay cozy while on an outdoor movie set. I think it was Sundance 2007 and all of the sudden all the cool kids had Canada Goose parkas.

Now middle class people wear Canada Goose parkas to signal to others their propensity for getting ripped off.

> The Hurley debacle is getting most of the press these days

>...And, of course, we all know about Hurley by now

No I don’t. I even had to search myself and still don’t know. Just tell the reader, we don’t all follow surfer/skate news.

What happened to Hurley? They closing shop?

This is consistent with most lifestyle brands. Look at rock climbing. The people who spend their lives free climbing don't spend $300 on a hoodie and even if they did, there are diminishingly few of them to sustain a luxury company. Every autumn people in cities dress like they've just stepped off a horse or are on their way to a grouse shoot without the land, means, or skill to do either. Dressing like a rock star doesn't make you one, but that never stopped anyone from paying $200 for a pair of jeans.

It's not capitalism, it's something else. On the consumer side, it's "mimetic desire," which is a whole complex thing.

On the creative side, when you love something, how do you find a way to make enough money at it that you can do it as a way of life? Then once you do, how do you compete with well capitalized people whose interests aren't divided and who specialize in selling empty symbols to rubes? (answer: teaching, performance, and elite competition)

When you are actually good at something, you don't buy symbolic things to represent it because representing it is hollow and absurd. It's not a paradox of capitalism at all. When you are actually good at something you love, you are above the fray. Paradoxes and criticisms are the noisy artifacts of people reconciling symbols, and not meaningful to people who are engaged in the moment.

So, I'd say there is no surf industry, just an industry that sells surf symbols, and to surfers its failure is necessarily meaningless.

As Louis Rossmann would say:

Don't worry, Gov "King" Cuomo will require a surfing license very soon, that is unless he doesn't outlaw it like e-bikes first.

Highly recommend the book "Let My People Go Surfing:The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual" by Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia and the precursor to Black Diamond (he spun BD out and sold it to his employees after losing a frivolous lawsuit).

The man is a legend in the climbing community, and wrote a whole book on balancing professional vs enthusiast gear while following his own moral compass.

It's a fascinating and worthwhile read for anyone who wants to find your own internal balance on being true to yourself and your values, while dealing with the realities of running a business. The discussions on what do we owe ourselves and others is a refreshing take on what it means to be successful.

Personally, I only buy clothes etc that I need. Skateboarding and surfing has had a major positive influence on my life so I tend to buy from brands that sponsor and support riders that I like. I don't buy lots anyway though.

Uhm, what, those brands actually made surfing clothes?

I honestly thought those brands made cool looking extremely casual clothes! Obviously, styles change and things go out of fashion.

Heck, I still own a pair of Volcom board shorts I accidentally bought 15 years ago because I thought they were a cool-looking bathing suit. I even wore them the one time I went surfing in Hawaii. I don't wear them often, because they don't have pockets, but when the occasion calls for them, (like spring skiing,) I love them.

Not a contradiction. Voluntary exchange is central to Capitalism. Option to resist excessive marketing is within the framework. It's a cultural thing which some sub-cultures are better at then others.

I don't think it solves everything but it is why I like the concept of B-Corps. I think the growth at all costs concept is at odds often with other important factors but we can adjust. I think B-Corps are a good start at re-aligning our evolving needs and our existing systems.

Well I can just disagree. I'm surfer, 20 years surfing, and it's just as any other sport. The image of the free surfer, almost hippie, has 0 to do with the reality, if you are over 30s. Grow up!

This is just the end result of demanding quarterly growth out of everything.

Start with a brand that has "cool" factor, milk it for all its worth, obliterate the brand, and walk away with your CEO bonuses.

> Believe it or not, there was once a day when Quik just made great boardshorts, O’Neill made great wetsuits, Oakley made the sunnies, etc. Soon, however, it seemed like all brands were in literally every category, unfortunately, not always doing that with much quality.

I wonder if this is a natural consequence of the drive for "growth"–whether that be in terms of more profit, more features, or anything else. You see it in the big tech companies, which have a tendency to expand into areas like social media, cloud, and self-driving cars, regardless of their original product line. Programming languages, where as a language ecosystem ages, it grows to acquire the features of every other language. Niche communities and countercultures online and off get diluted into meaninglessness once they catch on with too many people. Memes degrade. Information entropy increases monotonically.

I'm reminded of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called "God's Grandeur".

  The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
  Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
  Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
  Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

  And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
  And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
  Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Because for all this tendency towards monoculture, there is just as much evidence all around us of humanity's seemingly limitless capacity for reinvention and creation. Maybe decay is necessary in order to clear the way for what's to come. Maybe we should celebrate it!

The article conflates capitalism with consumer materialism.

No it doesn't. Surfing had it's boom and bust and now is a normal sport/hobby like skiing or everything else.

In the future one could also argue: tech industry contradicts basic capitalism: nowadays anybody has a smartphone, the phones cannot get any better, and everyone takes care of their smartphone because they don't want to pay alot money for a new one.

This article shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is. Capitalism is not an entity that has its own free will and desires. Capitalism is a projection of what people want. If surfers want what they want, then that is capitalism for them.

[a] industry paradox.[a], by its nature, contradicts basic capitalism.

Replace a with basically anything people do.

Like, totally, bro. Capitalism is just how the man gets us down.

The bigger lesson: Humans don't desire consumerist society.