Charles Dias <deepblue972000@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > I think the crisis in the photo industry is much more deep than > they say or even want to believe in. Some people says that one of > the two last big ones (Kodak and Fuji) will end the year almost > broken and I agree. > > It's clear that the "digital soluction" adopted in a hurry by the > photo industry was just like a gunshot in its own feet. For > decades Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa and Konica sold camera gear but > had most of its income from films, paper and chemicals for > processing ... nowadays with digital the number of prints sold > are decreasing drastically and they can do nothing about that > because they sold the tool for the consumer to avoid speding > money with photo labs. Other companies, like Nikon and Canon and Pentax and Olympus, were solidly in the camera business. They and others would have made and sold digital cameras anyway, and digital cameras would have taken over from film anyway -- because it fits people's needs much better. That's why people are switching so fast. Some of the professionals switched because of lab costs, maybe. Snapshooters switched because of online photo sharing and not having to finish the roll before emailing the pictures to the grandparents. > I think in the near future things will get worse for photo > industry and a lot of other companies will bankrupt or will go > out of photo business. The biggest problem is that in this war > we, consumers, are the real losers. You may be a loser; I'm certainly not, I'm a huge winner on the digital transition. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
