Makes complete sense to me. Fender has immense cultural cachet among multiple big-spending demographics: blues boomers, Cobain disciples, indie kids, even the hair metal guys via Charvel. The Gibson/Harley-Davidson move of leveraging a company that makes stuff into a lifestyle brand is the play here. Fender would rather throw legal weight around to execute that than compete by building high-quality guitars at a good price.

Too many Clapton lawyers have gotten hip to boutique builders. Fender would rather make them buy a $5000 Masterbuilt Custom Shop Deluxe Roadworn Heritage Double Relic No-Caster than a Tom Anderson or Suhr. Same for kids buying Harley Bentons and ESPs - a $1000 Indonesian-built instrument is their future if Fender has anything to say about it.

Masterbuilts are closer to $10k now, fwiw. Plenty of shop built CS hover around $5k or more.

> Fender would rather throw legal weight around to execute that than compete by building high-quality guitars at a good price.

The thing is, they already do that, or have in the relatively recent past. Arguably, they invented that move in the 1980s when they started selling non USA/Japanese models as Squier models.

There's only so much that brings them, though, and guitar music ain't what it used to be. The pie isn't growing very much (maybe at all) and now there's competition trying to capture more of the market.

Would Bill Schultz have done the same thing if the 80s and 90s hadn't been so good to rock music? Hard to say, but if the alternative was "No more Fender", maybe.