Since most people mail order their film stock nowadays, I could imagine that film processing will at some point in time be divided between home processing and mail in labs. And in the case of B&W I'd think that home processing will be dominant, it's just too simple to do yourself. People who hate dark room work have left the analog camp years ago. Nobody here has an issue with minilabs, I have no idea where you got that from. What I do reject, though, is your line of argument that film can survive only if this and that and that happens all at the same time and in massive numbers. Film scales a lot better than you try to make it sound.
All film markets are shrinking. No Neopan 1600. No Plus-X. The list goes on. There is no sign of any stemming of the decline.
Film emulsion is an economy of shared resources. Smaller players can only survive if there is enough bulk supply of core materials (substrate, chemicals, distribution, plant re-tooling, credit, market research) being purchased by larger players to create and economy of scale. This applies to the decline of film to the point where the largest purchaser in the world is close to bankruptcy, so those normally pulled along in Kodak's wake will feel severe turbulence, maybe some ups, then they will stall. Without that broad purchasing power from cinema and colour film, things will get very dicey and probably a lot more expensive for B&W. Don't for a moment imagine it's in its unique and sheltered little harbour. The ecology of film emulsions supply is very co-dependent, especially on pricing. Small B&W suppliers may see a small pip in sales upwards in an overall declining market, but they are likely to face some very serious a core input and credit supply problems. They use emulsion systems decades old, cannot scale to demand very well, and have very low capitalization profiles.
All mail in labs are hybrid processes because they have to be in order to be profit efficient. But that's taboo output and discussion here, yet is critical to a discussion of saving Tri-X and other products. Most people shoot a variety of films so it's like a well laid out table; knock one leg off it might stand. Knock two off and it all collapses. PE speaks to how difficult it is is to save Tri-X from technical perspective; I am examining the financial and a market options. No, I do not think film productions scales down well at all. It didn't from the very first days when George Eastman took his run at it.
Many in this and other forums have lamented that Kodak never put enough effort into lowering scanner costs and working more on scanning B&W. Fuji did for colour as they are minilab modules. This would have helped Tr-X. Ilford has mail order processing, scans, and prints. I would be interested to know how their B&W scans are done and their prints as well. So even getting into a discussion of Tri-X alternatives and mail order systems broaches taboo topics of scanning and inkjet printing. Pretty much anything not darkroom is hybrid and that's the limiting shame of trying to promote film, a discussion far more worthwhile than the silliness of stockpiling.
My analogy is when the ship is going down, we try and organize everyone into lifeboats. There may be losses (goodbye Plus-X), there may be sacrifices ("You mean we have to talk about scanning?"). Your analogy is grabbing a life preserver and your suitcase full of film and abandoning ship yelling "Every man for himself!"
For me it isn't very important if it is the same or something different. For me is just important that I like it....
