>A good counter example of this is the downfall of the German camera industry in the 60s and 70s. All that's left of that is Leica, Zeiss and a bunch of brand n

>A good counter example of this is the downfall of the German camera industry in the 60s and 70s. All that's left of that is Leica, Zeiss and a bunch of brand names (Rollei, Contax, Voigtländer..) stuck on Japanese cameras. Classic camera nerd here. True, true, but mostly down to: a) the Japanese government helping optical and camera companies share technologies, instead of Germany where patent protection makes german camera companies do hard competition against each other and find all kinds of workarounds to prevent patent infrigement from the other brand. b) REALLY bad business decisions (for example, Zeiss-Ikon-Voigtlander at some point had something like 3 or 4 incompatible different lens mounts for their 35mm camera range) c) the Japanese making stuff cheaper because less labor costs, unions, etc d) Also, due to WWII war reparations, Russia and Japan 'inherit' all optical patents and designs from Zeiss germany which helps them build their optical (and camera) industry as quick as possible. e) German companies not foreseeing the japanese menace / not doing anything about it. Great website and article about this: http://www.klassik-cameras.de/Voigtlaender-Niedergang.html http://www.klassik-cameras.de/Voigtlaender-Niedergang.html (use Google translate)