I have gone back several times and seen different people and they shared the same observations about my gait and recommended the same kind of shoes, and what they told me seemed to be corroborated by things I read (though I would not have known what to look for before). More than one person told me that they noticed wearing the sneakers corrected my gait. Also my knees really hurt (as Abe Kobo writes in the Ark Sakura, the knees are the bane of all fat people) and now they rarely do. It is not a double-blind experiment but I am pretty convinced that they know what they are talking about and that it's not just a parlor trick.

Now that I know what I'm looking for, I could go on Amazon and find the exact same shoes for way less, but I consider their expertise a service I'm willing to pay for despite higher prices and smaller selection.

The question I have is essentially if the shoes you are wearing are better for most everyone. Most shoes are bought for fashion, not any sort of fit. As such, if someone is complaining about knees or any other walking pain, it is not impossible that the same shoe would help.

That make sense? It could be that you just finally got ergonomic shoes. Consider people that have RSI and similar pains move to ergonomic keyboards. It isn't that those would not be ergonomic keyboards for everyone. They would. Just not everyone has pains and so not everyone needs them. However, an astonishingly high number of people will suffer wrist pains and not do anything about it until someone recommends they get an ergonomic keyboard.

With shoes, I grant there is something about knowing these exist. There could even be different kinds of ergonomic shoes. I'm just a little skeptical there. I'm guessing there are more marketed types of ergonomic shoes than there are actually beneficial types. (If that makes sense.)

Looking up "pronation" would probably be enough to convince you the answer to your question is no.

To stick with your RSI analogy, you're proposing that everyone with RSI could be cured by having a fixed desk with the monitor, chair, and keyboard tray at exactly the same height.

Not the same height. But I'd wager a large number of folks don't get heavily tailored solutions.

The question is ultimately if shoes are more like ergonomic keyboards, or like eyeglasses. My hunch is the former, since it doesn't take professional training to find stuff like pronation. (Which, yes, I already knew.)

Don't get me wrong, help staff can be good. I've yet to have a shoe associate give me any detail I didn't already know, though. Eye doctor? Yeah, I don't have the equipment to test my eyes.

If you are willing to do all the research yourself figuring out what type of step you have and what type of shoe is good for it and then what kind of options there are in that style then I suppose you don't need anyone's help. If you don't want to do that you can visit a professional who knows what they're talking about and be done with it in minutes.

I don't see that this is very different from any other service. If you're willing to figure out what parts you need and do the work, you can save money -- way more than you'll ever save on sneakers -- by doing auto repairs yourself. Most people would rather hire a mechanic who already knows how to do it in a fraction of the time. If you have RSI and seek occupational or physical therapy the therapist is "just" going to tell you a series of exercises that are good for your injury that you have to do yourself; given enough time and energy you could probably develop your own exercise plan.

Either way, I feel like this is straying pretty substantially from the theory you started with, where I just liked the shoes because I spent more money on them.

Ah, my point was a bit more rambled than it should have been. I actually had several thoughts that I blurred all together into one.

First thought was that you likely just got good shoes. Something surprisingly few people have.

That led to the thought that the sales people probably did give you attention, and did do well and suggest the correct shoes. However, my thought is that the correct shoes for most people probably align more often than we give credit.

My point about the effectiveness of paying for something was a complete aside that would only explain additional efficacy. I did not mean it accounted for the entire effect. (So, yeah, I should have left that out entirely.)

> However, my thought is that the correct shoes for most people probably align more often than we give credit.

Let me spell out very clearly why I do not think this is so:

1. As I alluded to before, a big axis when choosing shoes is whether you have a tendency to over-pronate, under-pronate, or neither. Shoes that correct over- or under-pronation have different properties. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to understand why someone who underpronates wouldn't do well with shoes designed to correct overpronation. Assuming (dubiously, I guess) that these traits are all evenly distributed, and ignoring any gradation within these categories, already you only have a one-in-three chance of getting the right shoe.

2. Some people have wider feet than others; different shoes are appropriate depending on this.

3. There are other complications: for instance, I wear orthotic inserts, which further narrows the number of shoes I can wear. Anything with little space on top or with elaborate built-in arch support is out.

4. Anecdotally, every time I am recommended a similar style of shoe which represents only a small percentage of the inventory of the store. When I watched my wife be fit, they gave her a different style.

If you visit Web sites about long-distance running (for natural reasons most of the people who really care about their sneakers are runners) you can find a lot of information about what shoes are right for what people and I guess probably what models are currently available with certain properties. But then again, you could also, you know, skip all that, and visit a specialty store (i.e., not Foot Locker), and have them tell you. I personally also discovered that I had been buying shoes too small for me because my ideas about how a shoe "should" fit were not quite right.

I suppose for a certain definition of "most people" you may be right: most people don't walk or run that much and won't experience any discomfort no matter what shoe they wear. But for anyone putting a heavy load on their legs or experiencing discomfort I have no doubt whatsoever that a visit to a specialty store is worthwhile.

I think you won me over on this several posts ago. :) I should have made that clear. I do think I was somewhat misunderstood, but I fully concede I think I am wrong, as well.

I'm probably still more amenable to the argument that most people just don't wear shoes that fit. But, I think I would have a hard time quantifying that.