To be fair to Yeezys they are literally the most comfortable pair of shoes I've ever worn in my life. I'm embarrassed to wear my very first pair out in public after they got dripped on by some black gunk from the el train tracks that couldn't even be bleached out but they are serving me very well as indoor shoes and on my treadmill. I own multiple other pairs now so I also feel less bad only wearing those inside.

With all the hype now I think Adidas is actually positioned very well to eventually supplant Nike in the market place. Shoe prices keep going up but Adidas has invested in a new tech that is incredible to wear to justify the cost while combining it with high end fashion.

I was very much in to sneakers growing up and can probably count on one hand the number of non Nike sneakers I ever bought during that time period. Jordans keep going up in price but every single pair I've bought in the past five to ten years has been cheap junk with paint that chips, soles that disintegrate and detach, and just extremely cheap build quality. I've been wearing Jordans for almost my entire life (there are toddler photos of me with a pair of 4s on) and they were my favorite type of sneaker during high school and college. There is a stark difference in the quality. I have a pair of 1s I bought in 2008 I still wear regularly, where as the last pair I bought developed a hole in the bottom after 2 years of use.

This is combined with the massive difference in the marketplace for buying their sneakers. When I was in college I went to exactly one Jordan sneaker drop and the police ended up needing to be called and I was totally turned off to the idea forever. Nike and Adidas run their drops very differently for the most part nowadays, although Yeezy Supply occasionally will backtrack. On Yeezysupply, the Adidas app, and the Adidas confirm app they've mostly settled into a flow where they let you know a week ahead of time a sneaker is coming out, you register your information ahead of time, they do a charge and refund to your card to verify it and then at 9:05 about on release day you get a congratulations notification or a so sorry notification from a random drawing. Before covid they would occasionally also do drops based on GPS location that make you have to goto the store for a guaranteed pair but no guarantee of your size so you'd still have to wait in line, which was extremely annoying but all the sneakers are atleast 1.5x increase in price immediately on release so you could always sell for a small profit to sometimes larger profit.

On the Nike SNKR app you get all the stress of waiting in line from the comfort of your home, you need to monitor the app for shoes with a pending release so you can register for notifications. On the day of you should have atleast two devices like a phone and tablet. The Android app is poorly programmed in comparison to the iOS app for no real reason other than it was farmed out to a bad consulting agency. You need to have all your credit card information saved ahead of time and your verification code memorized. A minute before you need to start tapping the disabled button or monitor www.time.gov. You get into the buy flow and have to read quickly to find your size, enter your memorized verification number, and you wait an arbitrary amount of time for the app to tell you that you if you're getting a pair or not. All these tips I've read and applied but have never actually gotten a pair of sneakers I've wanted from the app. I still buy multiple pairs of sneakers a year, but I have bought one single pair of Nikes in the past few years because the company has made it so difficult for me to give them money.

I believe Nike is living and existing off their former glory when it comes to the sneaker head community. I only ever bother with Nike at this point for classic designs that came out in the 80s and 90s that have been redone in a unique way, such as their collaborations with Virgil and other high end fashion designers. I refuse to pay more than retail for any sneaker because there will always be a new color or design out next month anyway. There's the disappointment associated with both companies of not getting a sneaker I want, but Nike has taken it to the extreme on the other side so much that most people can't get the shoe and when you actually can its crap quality in comparison to Adidas. Adidas needs to come out with a few more worthwhile pairs, maybe poach some athlete, artists, or designer from Nike, and they can begin to dominate.

All of this is with the caveat I have no idea what is going on in the marketplace when it comes to athletic wear for professional athletes. I think personally its less important to nearly everyone who isn't a professional athlete at this point as all the major players seem competent. All the real innovations from Nike, like their swim suits, seem to eventually get banned anyway.