Very well put argument revots...I really have trouble re-futing your last post (in response to mine).

I think, though, what would clear things up a little and what would also move us closer to agreement on the issue would be to define the term "people" as we are both using it/the term...

I agree there will be a certain amount of people who see poker as a "fad" and who will stop playing online and live, stop buying poker merchandise, and stop watching it on TV...they'll move on to the new fad in a few years perhaps...maybe many of them have already moved on! The question is
what %age of players is this? Is it a high percentage? Is what fueled the
recent boom in poker play online (and live) made up of a high percentage of short-attention span "trendy" people?
(probably a high %age of really bad
losing players meet this criteria...)

Give me this, though... that a lot of the people that started playing online (and live)/were INTRODUCED to poker play as a result of the recent boom and WILL end up being lifetime/lifelong players...
(But, you could say, which would go along with YOUR argument, that it goes on to reason that as the years go by, no matter how stupid a "lifetime player" is, he/she will gradually be getting better as time goes on...so this %age of the poker playing population
will eventually all be sharks! lol). So I can see your arguement...the games will get worse...UNTIL the next boom! (hopefully which will occur when online poker rooms begin to be located in the US and
the US begins to regulate and pass laws making it expressy "legal"...this boom will probably be bigger than the moneymaker/ESPN boom!

So, in the end, I agree with you...it stands to reason that "fresh fish"/calling stations/bad players need to
continue to be sent to the games in order to keep them really good...

But There are so many factors that can influence this and the arguement can go back and forth...
Heck - Little "booms" are probably happenning month by month (and even week by week online!).
The games might be great at one site for a few weeks due to a re-load bonus, recent advertising on the part of the poker room, etc., but the next week
the games might stink/be full of sharks! Poker is too big now to decline to the point where all the games will be bad...
it is soo big it just can't happen. Like I said it would take a few hundred years for this to happen - seriously.

I need more coffee before I continue arguing...burning out here...but I still think the games will be "beatable" for the next 100 years at least...lol

consider also that "Really good" players can continue to make money off of the other good players...
it just won't be as much money as a good/ave. player can make from a table full of 5 or 6 fish...