Society has all been conned to a certain extent. It was partly sold under pollution, those horid, dirty, smokey, noisy, evil 2 strokes. But if you look at the big picture, a 2 stroke will use a third of the parts each service interval. That means for every box of 2t parts to a bike shop for a week, there would be 3 for 4t. Go up the line to the warehouses, 3 instead of 1 truck, and further up the line 3, container ships instead of 1, chuffing out huge ammounts carbon emissions for the poor old ozone layer. And all the extra packaging and emmissions from the extra manufacturing.
As an unfortunate side affect for the poor old bike manufacturers, they have to make more money from all these extra parts and bikes sold due to the short life span of the bikes. And the poor of government also makes an extra packet out of all the extra sales. That would be about $300 of that $3,000 rebuild, as opposed to the $100 or so from the same 2t rebuild. The government realy makes a lot more than that. Everyone forgets about the porton of tax along the way that goes back from the workers wages, taxes on the fuels used by the transport companies, etc. The prices of everything is pushed up by taxes. At every step of the way from the obtaining of the raw material, to the sold product there are taxes upon taxes.
Everyone wanted 2 strokes only, just a decade ago. We covet what we see our idols winning races on. It is very good business sense for the manufacturers to push and sell 4ts. There will be little or no more development on 2ts as there is not the money there. It comes that many will not be able to afford to own a dirt bike and we will probably see more posts of "Another Sydney bike shop closes".
Sorry about my conspiracy theory rant. Do you want to hear the one about the government and aliens?
Retro