The implication of your comment and those of others in this thread seems to be
that consumers will blindly buy whatever new thing is offered up. (Assuming of
course that it receives at least a fair quota of marketing hype and favorable
magazine/web-site commentary.)
I could suggest a number of breakthroughs which have left consumers totally
unimpressed. Polaroid? They had a small niche but could not displace
acetate-based film that had to be processed in a witches' brew of chemicals.
Stereoscopic cameras? 3-D TV's? All 3 of my examples "should" have taken hold.
Polaroid appealed to that instant gratification thing that has people now
chimping. Stereo images and 3-D TV take us beyond flat images to something
closer to what we normally see. Just because a bright engineer or 30 figure out
how to grow organic LCDs or make sensors with extreme EV range doesn't mean
that consumers will buy such innovations. Or that they should.
To place my words of wisdom in context, for many many years, mid-1970's to
mid-80's, I thought I could deflect the remorseless advance of the vanguard of
progress. I argued (on the basis of perfectly good research data, some of it my
own research) that my employer was making a very foolish expensive mistake to
be buying color computer monitors. B&W was cheaper, lighter, cooler, lower
power requirements, greater reliability and, oh by the way, as good or better
than color monitors in conveying the information the users needed to use in
their job. I lost that battle ("don't talk to me about data - I know what I
like!") and at some point it became difficult/expensive to buy B&W monitors.
But just because I was wrong before about the inevitability of technology creep
doesn't mean I am wrong this time!
stan
On May 18, 2012, at 12:52 PM, Darren Addy wrote:
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 11:19 AM, John Sessoms <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Y'all are trying to apply common sense to marketing hype. Hardly anyone
>> *needs* 24MP. A whole lot of people apparently *WANT* 24MP.
>
> No, I believe that you have it backwards. Sensor manufacturers are
> constantly looking to make whatever they make some products bigger and
> better and existing products cheaper (economies of scale, if nothing
> else). Camera manufacturers look at what is coming "down the pike" in
> sensor design, select them and design around their components. Then
> the marketing people are charged with fanning the flames of consumer
> desire.
>
> If there is anything we learned from Steve Jobs and his groundbreaking
> products it is that the public doesn't have any idea what it wants,
> until *after* they see it.
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