I think in many circumstances you’ll still be able to buy the high-quality thing
This might be a problem if let’s say, today the cheap thing costs $2K and the expensive one costs $10K, but tomorrow the cheap thing will cost $10 (automated), and the expensive one is still the same $10K.
Because, from the perspective of the future piano tuner, it changes the salary progression from “$2K as a junior, $10K as an expert” to “unemployable as a junior, $10K as an expert”… but how are you supposed to become an expert if you never had a job before that?
Might be worth thinking about the many markets that exist rather than thinking this is some single homogenous market.
A lot of people will still play pianos and take private piano lessons. That market may not be able to afford the $10 tuning but could still support the $2, less perfect, tuning.
If that hypothesis is correct then less experienced tuners still have a path for skill development and gaining experience.
I think another path is that some shift from a market setting (paying someone else) to DIY and start learning how to tune their own, or their friends, piano. I suspect the hand tools needed are not that complex or expensive so that would not be a barrier.
Perhaps the biggest barrier might be beginners and less experienced tuners might not have developed ear and without a good mentor to help them train their ear might not be able to be as good as they perhaps could.
It may end up that way, but it will be much more of a lottery than today.
Basically, today you get some feedback along the way. As a junior, either you make junior salary which means you are doing well for a junior, and perhaps a few years later you will qualify for a senior and start getting senior salary. But if things go wrong, then either you never get the senior salary… but at least you got paid the junior salary for a few years, so your effort paid off at least somewhat; or you can’t even find a junior job, which sucks, but at least you wasted less time.
In the “senior or bust” system, you need to spend a lot of time studying and practicing first, and the first feedback that you wasted all that time and money can come a decade later. Sounds like only a quantitative difference, but I assume that expert piano tuners are rare (I may be wrong here), so the quantitative difference may become a difference between “there are a few” and “there is none”.
This might be a problem if let’s say, today the cheap thing costs $2K and the expensive one costs $10K, but tomorrow the cheap thing will cost $10 (automated), and the expensive one is still the same $10K.
Because, from the perspective of the future piano tuner, it changes the salary progression from “$2K as a junior, $10K as an expert” to “unemployable as a junior, $10K as an expert”… but how are you supposed to become an expert if you never had a job before that?
Might be worth thinking about the many markets that exist rather than thinking this is some single homogenous market.
A lot of people will still play pianos and take private piano lessons. That market may not be able to afford the $10 tuning but could still support the $2, less perfect, tuning.
If that hypothesis is correct then less experienced tuners still have a path for skill development and gaining experience.
I think another path is that some shift from a market setting (paying someone else) to DIY and start learning how to tune their own, or their friends, piano. I suspect the hand tools needed are not that complex or expensive so that would not be a barrier.
Perhaps the biggest barrier might be beginners and less experienced tuners might not have developed ear and without a good mentor to help them train their ear might not be able to be as good as they perhaps could.
Educational loans are the obvious answer, and are why I’m not worried about these kinds of arguments.
It may end up that way, but it will be much more of a lottery than today.
Basically, today you get some feedback along the way. As a junior, either you make junior salary which means you are doing well for a junior, and perhaps a few years later you will qualify for a senior and start getting senior salary. But if things go wrong, then either you never get the senior salary… but at least you got paid the junior salary for a few years, so your effort paid off at least somewhat; or you can’t even find a junior job, which sucks, but at least you wasted less time.
In the “senior or bust” system, you need to spend a lot of time studying and practicing first, and the first feedback that you wasted all that time and money can come a decade later. Sounds like only a quantitative difference, but I assume that expert piano tuners are rare (I may be wrong here), so the quantitative difference may become a difference between “there are a few” and “there is none”.