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The cause and effect you imply here are backwards I think. The products are better to justify their higher price, not higher priced because they're better. Th
by mark-r 5y ago
The cause and effect you imply here are backwards I think. The products are better to justify their higher price, not higher priced because they're better. The first sentence has it right - if you're faced with lower volumes, the best way to cope is by raising prices.
- samatman 5y agoI don't think it's either of those things. The products are better because of steady improvement in precision manufacturing. Sensors and lenses have both come a long way, the latter is mostly a benefit of cheaper precision steppers. The prices are higher because phones have taken the whole entry tier of the market out, pretty much. There's not a lot of point in a good digital camera with one noninterchangeable zoom lens, when pictures from a phone camera are almost as high quality, and action cameras like the GoPro also chipped away at that product. Cameras are a specialty product now, with APS-C and 3/4 as the entry level. People who want that kind of control and quality are willing to pay for it, and there aren't as many of us as there used to be.
- mark-r 5y agoYou're correct that the cell phone has killed off the low end. People used to believe that they needed a proper camera to get their casual snapshots, but more and more they realize the camera built into their phone is perfectly adequate to the task. So fewer and fewer people are buying those "proper" cameras, leading to the reduced volumes. But reduced volumes lead to reduced revenue, and reduced revenue is poison to any company. So they compensate by raising prices. People generally respond poorly to raising prices for no reason, so they make the goods better to justify it. The methods used to make them better are irrelevant.