Re: Kodak B&W Paper Discontinued? Good Ridence. (sic)

hmmm--
i don't think digital *is* indeed, "a fact of life". rather, it's a
decision of corporate enterprise following a train of marketing
"instantaneous" and "easy" end-user photography products (the original
Eastman Kodak slogan, as we all know, is "You press the shutter, we do
the rest"). the fact that this list exists and thrives is evidence of a
resistance to these modes of photography. we're all here because we
don't want "easy"--we all want a challenge: in fact, our way(s) of
seeing depend on it.

i was talking to a photo store owner in Toronto yesterday. he said he
was pretty sure photochemical was *much* more profitable than digital,
largely because of the extra layers of cutting edge technology and
research expenditure required to keep digital going.
digital doesn't dominate, necessarily--it's being made to dominate, in
order to keep up in part with competition and expense. consumer demand,
however, is another issue altogether... if "easy" and "instantaneous"
photography is about seeing one's brother/son/daughter/mother/puppy-dog
on an LCD monitor (a very different form of "previsualization"), then
digital seems to win hands-down. whether this is a product of a natural,
"fact-of-life" decision on the part of consumers, or the result of
limited options, hegemony over the types of images we as consumers feel
we can/should take, i would say it's clearly the latter.

here's to progress: where the ability to maintain control over the
things we say, do, and see is "taken care of" for us; where the freedom
to choose is limited to only the finest cutting-edge technology
hand-selected in advance for us; and the decision to continuously move
forward is regarded as the best thing for all, and why should we
question that?

am i too cheeky?
k

Pam Niedermayer wrote:
> I don't intend to be an apologist for Kodak, but perhaps you'd want to
> make some second thoughts.
>
> The responsibility of a corporation is to return the highest profit
> possible to its shareholders. All the other stuff is to support that
> profit machine. So, if n dollars invested in producing y product do not
> return as much profit as n dollars invested in x product, the
> corporation must consider producing x instead of y. Now a part of that
> consideration is how much y product adds to the overall equation, say
> producing y to support sales of z, which does return huge profits.
>
> After all, what would you think of a company that continued to make
> entry point buggy whips in 1930? Digital is a fact of life, and even
> Kodak cannot dispute this fact. Of course, it would be nice if they were
> to sell these products to another manufacturer; but I'd suspect they've
> tried and come up empty.
>
> Pam
>
> John Cremati wrote:
>
>> These companies make the huge mistake that because a item is not
>> selling a billion dollars worth of every product they make a year they
>> should get rid of it seeking only the most profitable
>> items.............They
>> do not realize that if they were still selling a lot of the chemicals and
>> other discontinued items that I would not only be buying paper from them
>> but chemicals as well and other supplies as well..........
>> Then they move much of their manufacturing to third world
>> countries
>> and now they expect me to buy my film from them when they cut off my
>> paper..... To top it off they have made it extremely difficult for
>> dealers to buy their product placing huge yearly minimal quotas on
>> them....... The small dealer can not meet these quotas........Again, they
>> are only seeking huge profits............
>> When I see this sort of mentality, all though I have rooted for them
>> in the past as I am a die hard Kodak Fan, I say good riddance.....
>> Hopefully a company will emerge that has a service attitude toward their
>> customers.... Some things you sell at a break even point, or even a
>> loss to
>> keep your customer base strong on other items you manufacture not just
>> discontinue them............. Also Maybe selling one box of 50
>> sheets 8x10
>> Ectachrome for over "$400"???? has something to do with it as well
>> ......You can not convince me that they can not do small production
>> runs and
>> streamline thier marketing toward the small dealer and end user it
>> increase
>> thier market share ..........
>> They have been living on easy street for to long.... The way I
>> see it , their heads are in their asses.....
>> They still do not realize that there will always be the die hard
>> Photographers in the world that will continue to buy these products no
>> matter what and they need to gear their operation toward them before they
>> completely loose them as well..................... Do they really care??
>> Probably not....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
Received on Fri Jun 17 06:21:16 2005