Question for economists - which medium is "better" for the economy?

[Karim Ghantous]

I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Companies also lead markets,

The market is dynamic, that's true. It's a bit of push and a bit of shove, just like nature.

[AlanKlein]

I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Companies also lead markets, and consumers buy what companies create, what they put their research and development dollars into. They saw big bucks in the ease of use of digital and phone cams and, to some extent, their latest creations helped drive film to where it is today.

 

Consumers often falsely think they’re in charge but, in fact, they’re working within a narrower and narrower range of choices.

 

The “free” market has never been free of certain qualities like greed, investor profit motive, and the bottom line. Yes, that’s led to some great innovation and some robust economies (especially among certain “classes” of people). It’s also led to abuses.

 

Regardless, however, the “free market” shouldn’t be compared to a democracy and voting. That’s not how it’s envisioned or how it works.

That's exactly how a free market works. It's very democratic. People vote on what products they're willing to spend their money on. There's no one ordering camera manufacturers to produce micro 4/3 cameras and stop producing let's say full format. These things are decided democratically by a free market.

 

No one in the government decided to do away with film. It was not a command decision. No one's arms were twisted. FIlm started to end because the free market democratically and organically decided to move on to digital. Isn't freedom great?

[samstevens]

That's exactly how a free market works. It's very democratic. People vote on what products they're willing to spend their money on. There's no one ordering camera manufacturers to produce micro 4/3 cameras and stop producing let's say full format. These things are decided democratically by a free market.

 

No one in the government decided to do away with film. It was not a command decision. No one's arms were twisted. FIlm started to end because the free market democratically and organically decided to move on to digital. Isn't freedom great?

You're not recognizing the difference between an economy and a government, but that's ok, you get to vote anyway. You're saying that because the market is not controlled by the government, it must be just like the government. That's illogical and wrong.

 

The market is not democratic. Consumers don't vote for the heads of corporations or for anyone who works in a corporation. Consumers don't vote on what products get researched, developed, and created, on what days of the week the workers work, on what salaries the workers get. Corporations, especially without unions, are more authoritarian than not. And corporations lead the public as much if not more than consumers drive what corporations do.

 

Freedom is an ideal, rarely achieved in practice, but nevertheless worth working toward. In order to actually work, freedom has to be accompanied by restrictions on freedom, like rules, regulations, and laws. Otherwise freedom is anarchy and usurious.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Freedom is relative. Always freedom in opposition to someone else. And who gets to decide, and how, who will prevail? Mankind's history is a continuous example of that, of how people try to fight for their own freedom. Freedom, the 'absolute', fundamental sort, is one of the most oppressive and restrictive things we know.

Freedom as a good for all is a myth.

[AlanKlein]

You're not recognizing the difference between an economy and a government, but that's ok, you get to vote anyway. You're saying that because the market is not controlled by the government, it must be just like the government. That's illogical and wrong.

 

The market is not democratic. Consumers don't vote for the heads of corporations or for anyone who works in a corporation. Consumers don't vote on what products get researched, developed, and created, on what days of the week the workers work, on what salaries the workers get. Corporations, especially without unions, are more authoritarian than not. And corporations lead the public as much if not more than consumers drive what corporations do.

 

Freedom is an ideal, rarely achieved in practice, but nevertheless worth working toward. In order to actually work, freedom has to be accompanied by restrictions on freedom, like rules, regulations, and laws. Otherwise freedom is anarchy and usurious.

 

I never said that a free market must be like a government. That whole statement makes no sense to me. Maybe you expand your point?

 

Free markets and their buying democracy have nothing to do with running companies, what salaries are, or how many days a week a worker works. Barring government interference, those things are decided between workers and employers. Free markets decide which products become more popular and desired and encourage products to be developed by private individuals and their companies. Free markets send signals to producers what products make sense to develop and sell, where to start a business, etc. If the government gets involved, false signals are sent and businesses develop products that they might not have developed. For example, government incentives create a demand for more electric vehicles and solar panels. Government interference with the free markets makes markets more inefficient. What would have happened to digital photography if the government gave incentives to keep using film?

 

Finally, I never said there should not be regulations. What I'm saying is that free markets produce better products at a cheaper price that better satisfies the public demand.

[samstevens]

Maybe you expand your point?

Nope. I'm done.

[rodeo_joe1]

Colors (show me the colors of Astia), ease of use, direct access with your own senses.

None of which are objective and measurable.

But here are your wonderful and 'analogue' film colours, at the scale of an average single digital pixel, which can represent millions of tones/colours per 5 micron square.

I can't see, nor even imagine, how 5 or 6 blobs of Cyan, Yellow and Magenta can combine in any combination in that same area to represent 16.7 million different colours. But maybe the far fewer tones seen through heavily rose-tinted spectacles might come a bit closer.

 

Film - ease of use? Total oxymoron. And I'm speaking as someone who used the stuff for over 40 years.

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

Ahh, yes. In the ideal world that never existed and never will. What idealists fail to understand is that a civil society, to function at all, needs both freedom and restrictions on freedom.

 

The free market, uninhibited by government regulation, would be an abusive disaster for consumers. We’d be sick from polluted water, dying from toxic exposures, our meat would be consistently tainted, and we'd be unprotected at the hands of monopolies (which we kind of already are).

See Teapot Dome Scandal, See child labor in 19th century industrial England. All shining examples of laissez faire economics.

[rodeo_joe1]

These things are decided democratically by a free market..

And by huge advertising budgets. These days aided by paid influencers and Internet memes.

Does anyone really think that the best designed, best working, longest-lasting, or best value products rise to the top on merit alone?

 

Consumers are just a herd of sheep, to be shepherded with crooks (sic) of hype, and dogs of psychological coercion.

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

Alan said: j"Free markets decide which products become more popular and desired and encourage products to be developed by private individuals and their companies. Free markets send signals to producers what products make sense to develop and sell, where to start a business, etc."

 

I think that's basically true.

 

Alan also said: "

If the government gets involved, false signals are sent and businesses develop products that they might not have developed. For example, government incentives create a demand for more electric vehicles and solar panels. Government interference with the free markets makes markets more inefficient. What would have happened to digital photography if the government gave incentives to keep using film?"

 

But you could also ask where would the development of the electronic and digital economy including pnhotography be if government hadn't decided to stimulate the technology to go to the moon. I think it's a canard to say that government interference makes markets more inefficient, depending on how you define efficiency. Where would the development of the automobile have been without the decision by governments to build roads, or assist in the construction of railroads in the 19th century? I'm not saying at all the gov't intercession is a great panacea, just that that it is part of the overall economy and that's not a bad thing.

Edited July 26, 2022 by http://www.photo.net/barryfisher

[rodeo_joe1]

And, regarding Joe's comment, I suspect that the environmental

cost of portable computing devices is higher than that of film

and photofinishing.

I didn't mention Smartphones, Tablets or the like. I was making a one-to-one comparison between the resources used, and wasted, by a single picture taken with a film camera, and a single picture taken with a digital camera. Expanding that to include the explosion in the use of 'portable computing equipment' is mutating the argument entirely, and it's not necessarily one of co-dependence. More just a coincidental offshoot of a technological paradigm shift, from mechanical to electronic, and from physical to 'virtual' information transfer.

Edited July 26, 2022 by rodeo_joe|1

[Jochen_S]

My portable computing device for brag shot displaying would be a 10" tablet, almost 4 years old, still going strong, replaceable for 150€. So we have a budget of 40€/year.

If we want to talk environment, you have to weigh in a physical(!) newspaper subscription, on the film side of things, since I am getting my news on that tablet too.

[glen_h]

I didn't mention Smartphones, Tablets or the like. I was making a one-to-one comparison between the resources used, and wasted, by a single picture taken with a film camera, and a single picture taken with a digital camera. Expanding that to include the explosion in the use of 'portable computing equipment' is mutating the argument entirely, and it's not necessarily one of co-dependence. More just a coincidental offshoot of a technological paradigm shift, from mechanical to electronic, and from physical to 'virtual' information transfer.

 

Yes.

 

Mostly I wanted to note that accurate comparisons can be complicated.

 

Smartphone ads often mention their camera abilities, so I suspect that some do buy them

based on their photographic use. That is, some fraction of the purchase of such devices

would not occur without the photographic use.

 

But yes, I have no idea about the different environmental cost of the technologies.

[AlanKlein]

Alan said: j"Free markets decide which products become more popular and desired and encourage products to be developed by private individuals and their companies. Free markets send signals to producers what products make sense to develop and sell, where to start a business, etc."

 

I think that's basically true.

 

Alan also said: "

If the government gets involved, false signals are sent and businesses develop products that they might not have developed. For example, government incentives create a demand for more electric vehicles and solar panels. Government interference with the free markets makes markets more inefficient. What would have happened to digital photography if the government gave incentives to keep using film?"

 

But you could also ask where would the development of the electronic and digital economy including pnhotography be if government hadn't decided to stimulate the technology to go to the moon. I think it's a canard to say that government interference makes markets more inefficient, depending on how you define efficiency. Where would the development of the automobile have been without the decision by governments to build roads, or assist in the construction of railroads in the 19th century? I'm not saying at all the gov't intercession is a great panacea, just that it is part of the overall economy and that's not a bad thing.

Barry, You can also add war and defense budgets being a huge influencer on the advancement of products, technology etc. But the part you're missing is at what cost?

 

The moon project and VietNam War in the 1960s and 1970 caused huge inflation due to deficit spending to pay for it.. Of course, technology advanced a lot. However, the cost of war has bankrupted nations throughout history. So what good is a better bow and arrow or rocket, if you're starving? What we don't see readily is the huge cost of government spending, although today with inflation, we can again appreciate that. If the government had not gotten involved, these developments would have occurred organically influenced more by a free market. Maybe slower, but with less damage to a nation's economy like we're suffering through today.

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

Hey Alan good points, but not at all the total picture of inflation in the 70's. Monetary policy more then govt. spending was a bigger factor. Nixon moved the dollar off the gold standard for a couple of reasons, including getting sick of the French asking for trade imbalances to be paid in gold, and also that a tied down down dollar did not allow economic expansion. However the Fed wasn't up to the task and let money get too loose, overheated the economy and when production tailed off, they didn't re-adjust. It took Volker at the Fed to rein it in causing a temporary recession. The other huge factor was the quadrupled energy prices due to OPEC manipulating the market. Remember the lines for the gas station? It turns out that deficits are not the huge driver ochf inflation that certain schools of economics claim. For instance, today's inflation in not being caused by Pandemic relief like conservatives like to claim. In fact during the Biden administration to date there has been a 1.7 trillion dollar reduction in the deficit. The fact's point more to the world wide rise in energy costs, supply chain issues from the pandemic such as cost and slowdown of shipping, greater demand then supply and the costs of computer chips in China which is raising up all sorts of supplies. Demand has been high, but many manufacturers can't get the materials they need fast enough and that is also raising prices. Given all that, it still turns out that inflationary trends tend to correct over time as the current one will.

 

For me I believe the the actual govt. support for tech in the space race, and unfortunately the arms race, which to me is a negative, the digital age might have happened, or not. You say eventually I say the advancement was most defiantly worth the temporary inflation. Government support of infrastructure has been critical to the building of the modern economy, which for the slips and blips is pretty strong. Now the challenge I believe, is to define and explore what a "sustainable" economy is and how it can be created. An economy based on infinite expansion regardless of resources is a malthusian proposition. Sorry for the long winded post but I just don't buy into the "government should stay out of the free market" as a panacea for solving humanity's problems is very viable or desirable. Remember the crash of 2007?

[paddler4]

The moon project and VietNam War in the 1960s and 1970 caused huge inflation due to deficit spending to pay for it..

 

These two examples are not similar. Most of the expense of the Vietnam war was people, supplies, equipment, and logistics. In contrast, the moon shot and the space race in general required enormous technological advances, and the economic consquences of those advances are hugely complicated, far more than just their effect on the money supply. For example, some of the impetus for the development of integrated circuits came from military and space applications. We now can buy chips like the Intel i7-9700K, which has 3 BILLION transistors, for under $400 RETAIL. The economic consequences of developments like that are enormous and too numerous to readily count.

[AlanKlein]

Hey Alan good points, but not at all the total picture of inflation in the 70's. Monetary policy more then govt. spending was a bigger factor. Nixon moved the dollar off the gold standard for a couple of reasons, including getting sick of the French asking for trade imbalances to be paid in gold, and also that a tied down down dollar did not allow economic expansion. However the Fed wasn't up to the task and let money get too loose, overheated the economy and when production tailed off, they didn't re-adjust. It took Volker at the Fed to rein it in causing a temporary recession. The other huge factor was the quadrupled energy prices due to OPEC manipulating the market. Remember the lines for the gas station? It turns out that deficits are not the huge driver ochf inflation that certain schools of economics claim. For instance, today's inflation in not being caused by Pandemic relief like conservatives like to claim. In fact during the Biden administration to date there has been a 1.7 trillion dollar reduction in the deficit. The fact's point more to the world wide rise in energy costs, supply chain issues from the pandemic such as cost and slowdown of shipping, greater demand then supply and the costs of computer chips in China which is raising up all sorts of supplies. Demand has been high, but many manufacturers can't get the materials they need fast enough and that is also raising prices. Given all that, it still turns out that inflationary trends tend to correct over time as the current one will.

 

For me I believe the the actual govt. support for tech in the space race, and unfortunately the arms race, which to me is a negative, the digital age might have happened, or not. You say eventually I say the advancement was most defiantly worth the temporary inflation. Government support of infrastructure has been critical to the building of the modern economy, which for the slips and blips is pretty strong. Now the challenge I believe, is to define and explore what a "sustainable" economy is and how it can be created. An economy based on infinite expansion regardless of resources is a malthusian proposition. Sorry for the long winded post but I just don't buy into the "government should stay out of the free market" as a panacea for solving humanity's problems is very viable or desirable. Remember the crash of 2007?

Barry, The price of film and photography equipment won't suddenly decrease once the CPI increases settle down. If you look back at the industry over the decades, prices stay higher than they were. Of course, prices for products that are obsolete will usually go down. So older camera models, for example, can be bought for less. But that has to do with supply and demand and other economic factors besides inflation and printing. Also, as technology gets cheaper to do, even newer cameras will be priced less than in earlier times. But although you don;t see it, inflation causes them to still be more expensive in the sense that they could have been even cheaper if not for inflation and printing. SO instead of the price dropping let's say 15%, they only drop 10%.

 

Inflation, which I define as the increase in the money supply due to "printing" will continue to occur at least in the US to pay for government budgets beyond tax collection. Our deficit spending. So film, cameras, and other products will continue to increase in cost although at a smaller pace eventually. Printing money may not instantly affect these products because much of the extra money has gone into housing, the stock market, and other asset price increases. So it's not true that printing hasn't affected goods and services costing more. It's just that consumer products weren't affected as much, but rather big ticket assets. My house for example has gone up around 80% in the nine years since I moved in. Now we're seeing it with film and cameras and other goods like food and clothes. People are already deciding to forgo photography because they need to eat and pay for other things. So spending on photography will decrease as well.

[AlanKlein]

These two examples are not similar. Most of the expense of the Vietnam war was people, supplies, equipment, and logistics. In contrast, the moon shot and the space race in general required enormous technological advances, and the economic consquences of those advances are hugely complicated, far more than just their effect on the money supply. For example, some of the impetus for the development of integrated circuits came from military and space applications. We now can buy chips like the Intel i7-9700K, which has 3 BILLION transistors, for under $400 RETAIL. The economic consequences of developments like that are enormous and too numerous to readily count.

It may be true that the cost of circuits has gone down. But you're not computing into that reduction how much in taxes and inflated costs due to deficit spending that cost. If the price of film went up $2 a roll because of inflation due to these things, how would you know that just looking at what Kodak or Fuji charges? Those costs for the moon flights and war are $2. You just don't see it. Regardless of the reason for money printing to pay for government deficit spending, whether for war or the moon or anything else, the inflation (printing of additional dollars) raises prices because the value of each dollar is worth less. So you need more of them to buy your photo products and everything else.

 

It's like a run of photos. Let's say you have a run of 50 photos and charge your buyer $400 for each framed photo. If you increase the run to 100, the value of each framed picture will go down. More supply, less value. Simple economics. So maybe you'll charge $300. or $250. More of the photos in circulation will reduce each unit's value. The same happens with currency. The more your print, the less each dollar, or Pound, or Euro, is worth. So you need more of them to buy the same thing. Prices go up.

[Allen Herbert]

"Do you think that photography is making me rich? For some, it is. For me, it isn't, and yet I wouldn't do anything else" Karim.

 

Hey Ho, whos talking about you? Me, never mentioned you,

 

 

So, we all agree consumers vote with their coin. A thousand words were needed to reach that conclusion when the odd word would have been suffice.

 

Obviously, the strong present of marketing influences decide all decisions; how hard is that to understand.

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

I never said the price of film will come down, how did you get that? Simple scale of economy mitigates against that. The film processing labs are very few and the whole infrastructure around film is highly reduced. Simply not enough people shoot film anymore which makes it a rarer commodity. Of course prices will in most cases over time inflate generally, that's the nature of the current market economy. You just don't want them to inflate at 9% that's why most countries have a "target inflation", one that ensures good economic growth but doesn't effect basic cost of living in a manner that wages can't keep up with. If you are looking to go back to the $500 dollar Leica with 50 Summicron I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Ed_Ingold]

A product is worth only what people are willing to pay for it.

[q.g._de_bakker]

A product is worth only what people are willing to pay for it.

And always, some people are willing to pay more for something than other people. So what is the worth of something?

[Ed_Ingold]

And always, some people are willing to pay more for something than other people. So what is the worth of something?

Redux.

[AlanKlein]

I never said the price of film will come down, how did you get that? Simple scale of economy mitigates against that. The film processing labs are very few and the whole infrastructure around film is highly reduced. Simply not enough people shoot film anymore which makes it a rarer commodity. Of course prices will in most cases over time inflate generally, that's the nature of the current market economy. You just don't want them to inflate at 9% that's why most countries have a "target inflation", one that ensures good economic growth but doesn't effect basic cost of living in a manner that wages can't keep up with. If you are looking to go back to the $500 dollar Leica with 50 Summicron I wouldn't hold my breath.

Prices do not inflate. They go up or down based on supply and demand. They will also be driven higher if inflation drives the money supply higher. The amount of money in circulation inflates or deflates. Prices change normally based on supply and demand. If there is no inflation, no increase in money supply, the price would stay constant all other things remaining equal.

 

What's caused increases in the cost of film and cameras over the years is the debasement of the currency due to printing. Even "target inflation" such as 2% adds up and hurts us. In ten years that debases the currency 20% (10x 2%) So everything in the economy will cost 20% more as an average including film. The high cost of film today has finally caught up to all that 2% inflation over the years. I'd stock up and stuff your freezer as it's going higher.

[samstevens]

I'd stock up and stuff your freezer as it's going higher.

Done. It’s in the big freezer in my underground bunker, all set to protect me and my picture taking from the guvmint. Right next to the Ben & Jerry’s. My very own ruggedly individual, steel-reinforced free market. :rolleyes:

Edited July 29, 2022 by samstevens