It seems like there are patterns.  Someone starts 
collecting - they're really excited about a 
certain series.  They buy up all the cels they 
can find from that series, and then gloat about 
all their wonderful cels on all the boards.  It 
seems like those people then get bored equally 
fast and sell off all their cels to finance some 
other hobby.  Other people get frustrated with 
those people who drive up prices, and then try to 
justify it by going on and on about how the 
market is controlled by supply and demand, not 
realizing that what they in fact created was a 
bubble economy.  The frustrated people can't 
afford the cels they want anymore, so they quit 
too.  And then there are the attitudes of a lot 
of the younger (and even some of the older) 
collectors.  There's a lot of selfishness, a lot 
of greed, and a lot of general unpleasantness 
that creates a bad atmosphere, and so some of the 
older collectors get fed up.  Some of them don't 
necessarily stop collecting, but they stop 
reading these boards and trying to be part of the 
online community.  I think that's a shame.  I 
can't tell anything about the dropout rate - that 
would imply knowing how many people there are who 
collect cels to begin with.  We only really 
notice the ones who make a lot of noise, and 
sometimes when they decide to leave it's a 
relief.  


Jennifer

who probably shouldn't have written this and who 
won't respond to any flames, so don't bother