On Feb 9, 2007, at 3:30 PM, Mark Roberts wrote: > Bob Shell wrote: > >> On Feb 8, 2007, at 6:57 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >> >>> With the volumes of film processing dropping into the sewer, >>> according to everyone in the photofinishing business this past year, >>> I think the cash cow's milk has become sour. >> >> Film hasn't been a cash cow for years. More like a cash goat, and >> maybe a pygmy goat at that. >> Time to sell and move on. Companies that live in the past end up in >> the dust..... > > Yeah, there might be enough profit in film for it to be worthwhile > to a > small, niche company, but even Kodak hasn't downsized itself that far. > Time to sell it off while they can still get some money for it. > > Last summer a friend of mine who's a research chemist at Kodak was > reminiscing about the golden era of film: "Man, it was like having a > license to print money! It cost us less to make the film than for the > box and packaging we put it in." > > I don't know if his comment about the cost of the packaging was > intended to be taken literally, but he was clearly wistful about the > "good old days" :)
I worked in the photofinishing business for two and a half years in the early 1980s. If you were efficient about things, it *was* printing money. Overall markup over expenses at that time amounted to something like 80% gross profit for regular D&P work. That's why it was so easy to give away a roll of film with D&P. Then the little minilab machines came out and the whole game started to fall apart. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
