ron--I'm a gov't photographer (one of several in the system I work for) and for the most part, the only ones left shooting film and using darkrooms are in the archives. although I'm in a museum, the stance we have in regards to film & paper is largely personal, in that we're "old timers". I don't see this changing anytime soon. otoh--these people, most likely, will never pop up on a forum like this. I hear more about the others through work contacts and dealing with the few support techs still left. the consensus is that the remaining market are people either without the funding to switch over completely to digital, or the stubborn old-timers.
every year, our system sends out contracts for bids. for photo materials, it's almost 99% kodak. for years, we couldn't even get other products, simply because the vendors bid so low on kodak, that written justifications were needed to get other materials off contract. we never saved any money , when kodak was 80% off. to this day--E6 is still cheaper than the hazmat fees.
I've seen the contract amounts--and for kodak, the year before they quit offering paper, the bids were for ten grand pack amounts in glossy & matte, in about I guess a little over a half dozen sizes. I figured then, it was about 350 thousand sheets of poly IV. For the life of me, I don't know who is using all that--but I do know the figured for our lab, and the archives. in one week last month, another staffer ran over a 1000 sheets of poly IV. that same person processed almost 250 rolls of film in that period as well. I know-- I run the process control on the deeptank...that's a lot of film for one person in one-month. there was a time, 2 years ago, when I shot more 4x5 film in one year at work, than ten years before. we shot over 4000 sheets of chrome film that year, and more in b/w. again--that's basically one person output. To me, it's a sizeable amount. To the market, it's nothing. Especially when years ago, you had the furniture market for example, all shooting 8x10 and larger in huge amounts using b/w film as the proofing material. Those days are over.
on our end, we use more 4x5 than anything. a lot of TMX and EPN. There was a post here, bemoaning the lack of improvements in the past twenty years for kodak products. I have been working as a photographer for that period of time--almost all of it using kodak products. I didn't need them improved. They worked just fine for me.
I really don't know what more we could have done as consumers. I was pretty shocked when they quit making their paper--I always felt we had ordered so much, and had continued to do so, that it must have accounted for something, but then I felt the same way about ilford and their processing machines, and we've never fully recovered after that. my feeling was that if these companies would have supported the labs more, then the impetus to stick with paper would have been greater. then again, I understand why they did that--the money just wasn't there. I don't blame them--but when I read posts about how "we" as professionals need to do more. I don't get it. I've done my part as a consumer of kodak materials, and continue to do so. If they still made poly IV, there wouldn't be any white boxes in our lab.