Google "business ethics", pick a site, any site, and think about how the various topics within the rubric might affect product pricing. You may not think any of it is applicable, but there is a chance you might.
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Shocked at how much bulk TMY-2 costs
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Google "business ethics", pick a site, any site, and think about how the various topics within the rubric might affect product pricing. You may not think any of it is applicable, but there is a chance you might.
I said, specifically, ethics doesn't apply to pricing of film. I'm not talking about specific instances of selling film to one individual for a an elevated price, taking advantage of that person's lack of knowledge or gullibility or whatever. I'm talking about a listed price for something that anyone can easily compare with other sellers. Of course there are ethics pertaining to business. But if there is no misrepresentation, a business can charge whatever it wants for what is essentially a luxury item (namely, film), and ethics does not come into play. You can feel free to disagree with that pricing but that does not make them unethical.
Being opportunistic is not always immoral.
Not always. But sometimes. If I read you correctly.
Ethics does not address what someone can do, it addresses what someone should do.
I am not sure how the distinction between luxury and non-luxury items plays into this. Food? What kind of food. Shelter? What kind of shelter? Clothing? What kind of clothing? Who decides? Film? What if the film is for your job. Still a luxury?
By the way, although the price of bulk TMY-2 film is high, it is still a couple of dollars a roll cheaper than buying it prepackaged.
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Actually, ethics really only has to do with what someone does.
As for the luxury vs necessity thing - that's just a convenient distinction that exists within our society that demarcates those things that people can or can't live without. Yes, it's vague. Yet it's pretty clear when confronted by any item what category it falls into, given a set of circumstances. No one needs film for survival.
And, if you want to go a bit deeper, there is no necessity behind any ethical obligation beyond what has been established as convention by society.
In our society, taking advantage of opportunity to gain greater amounts of income by selling non-essential items to people who are willing to pay is completely and totally ethical.
So, for you, it is an after the fact determination?
Why do I have to wear hip boots to protect myself from such overblown nonsense? Yes business can pass on their risk. Just because one feels the prices are too high, does not give permission to call businesses greedy. Please rein it in.
Are people actually arguing that Kodak and others should sell film at a serious loss? One can argue about what level of profit is "ethical", but no company - even state owned companies - can sustain long term losses.
All analysis from those in a position to have some idea of the numbers points to all current manufacturers of film making slim margins on their products. Picking some pie in the sky figure that you'd *like* to pay for a film out of thin air and saying it's unethical to charge more is hardly helpful.
All analysis from those in a position to have some idea of the numbers points to all current manufacturers of film making slim margins on their products. Picking some pie in the sky figure that you'd *like* to pay for a film out of thin air and saying it's unethical to charge more is hardly helpful.
It seems they don't realize that these would be the consequences of their demands.
Fujifilm Velvia 50 was under $5 a roll. Everything was being dumped. So much to choose from.
It's not "for me". In the instance where you judge someone or some entity as ethical or not ethical, you can only base a determination on what it is they actually do (or refuse to do) in light of specified obligations. For instance, a film manufacturer has no obligation to provide clothing to homeless people. If they do provide clothing to homeless people, that's swell, but it's not an ethical action within their purview as a film-manufacturing company. It could be considered ethical as a company operating within a community. But never doing it would not be unethical. It would simply be one of the many many nice things they could do but have never done.
Kodachrome was cheap when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I know. I was there. Fred Flinstone was my neighbor.
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MattKing
Moderator
I never thought I would find myself in a position where I was considering whether a thread about the pricing of Kodak film needs to be moved into the Ethics and Philosophy sub-forum! 
I hope Allessandro Serrao understands that the store that koraks referenced did something that is a true anomaly - the realities of business are that almost no one is going to be able to afford to buy that much of an inherently perishable product and sell it over several years - particularly considering the costs of money and the costs of the refrigeration.
The nearest parallel I can think of is the old practices of places like Freestyle Photo and Ultrafine, who used to be able to buy up overstock and near "best before" date stock at a steep discount, and take the risk that they would be able to sell it before the date or market realities meant that they would have to dump them at a loss.
But all those sorts of things came to be because there was massive capacity in the production end. That capacity meant that the few cents extra profit on one product was available to cover the losses on other products.
If you are in retail, every day that a product sits on your shelf costs you real money, because of the cost of the money you used to put that product on the shelf, and the indirect cost that having that product take up shelf space imposes. And those costs add up in a particularly brutal way.
I used to work in a retail environment where we were required to change price tags when the wholesale price on an item went up. That was because the accounting approach taken by that extremely large, country-wide business was that the price for the (regularly stocked and sold) item on the shelf was based on the cost to buy new stock when the old stock sold. Sometimes customers object to that approach, but they weren't the ones who needed the proceeds of sale in order to re-stock the shelf.
I hope Allessandro Serrao understands that the store that koraks referenced did something that is a true anomaly - the realities of business are that almost no one is going to be able to afford to buy that much of an inherently perishable product and sell it over several years - particularly considering the costs of money and the costs of the refrigeration.
The nearest parallel I can think of is the old practices of places like Freestyle Photo and Ultrafine, who used to be able to buy up overstock and near "best before" date stock at a steep discount, and take the risk that they would be able to sell it before the date or market realities meant that they would have to dump them at a loss.
But all those sorts of things came to be because there was massive capacity in the production end. That capacity meant that the few cents extra profit on one product was available to cover the losses on other products.
If you are in retail, every day that a product sits on your shelf costs you real money, because of the cost of the money you used to put that product on the shelf, and the indirect cost that having that product take up shelf space imposes. And those costs add up in a particularly brutal way.
I used to work in a retail environment where we were required to change price tags when the wholesale price on an item went up. That was because the accounting approach taken by that extremely large, country-wide business was that the price for the (regularly stocked and sold) item on the shelf was based on the cost to buy new stock when the old stock sold. Sometimes customers object to that approach, but they weren't the ones who needed the proceeds of sale in order to re-stock the shelf.
I would say that, for the majority of years they were trickling out that stock of film, there were making almost nothing from it. They probably spent over ten years kicking themselves for buying it. Good for them that they can actually get a return on the investment.
MattKing
Moderator
They were probably only able to deal with this because of the periods during those 20 years where interest rates went down to unusually low levels, permitting them to re-finance the debt they most likely took on to buy the film in the first place.
Yes, this is just turning into a place to vent.
1. Price ceilings create shortages.
2. Kodak is "rationing by price" . Remember not too long ago there was no color film to be had.
3. I don't know, but I suspect that Kodak is taking on a significant portion of the Fujifilm production
If you want to scream at someone scream at Fujifilm for abandoning us old fools who expect to be able to buy a fresh roll of Pro 400H two rolls at a time @6 bucks a piece.
And then we can (NOT) get into the decline in Western economies and the plight of workers NO NO NO.
1. Price ceilings create shortages.
2. Kodak is "rationing by price" . Remember not too long ago there was no color film to be had.
3. I don't know, but I suspect that Kodak is taking on a significant portion of the Fujifilm production
If you want to scream at someone scream at Fujifilm for abandoning us old fools who expect to be able to buy a fresh roll of Pro 400H two rolls at a time @6 bucks a piece.
And then we can (NOT) get into the decline in Western economies and the plight of workers NO NO NO.
I wonder if developing a color film for scanning only will reduce the price And technologies involved.
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With a few obvious exceptions, most camera stores are really tiny businesses. The most successful one in this area, which has survived 50 years, is just a mile down the same street from where I once worked as a buyer. But we sold construction supplies. And even at my personal station, we would literally transact more dollars and profit margin in half an hour than any local camera store did in a month. And I was directly involved in only a third of that company. But I had a distinct game plan which included both high-end products, and attracted an especially professional clientele. All the competitors who went with a low profit margin business model never put on enough fat for winter hibernation, so to speak, and one-by one went out of business when the next recession arrived.
Kodak made a massive mistake when they took once abundant cash reserves and used them to buy back their own stocks rather than investing in new infrastructure, or refining and materializing extant R&D. And in their case, Winter arrived early, along with a lot of digital Night Walkers. But that very kind of mistake was quite popular among CEO's at the time, and tanked plenty of manufacturers besides Kodak. Now there simply isn't any more wiggle room for that kind of roll of the dice. Perhaps that's the best for everyone in the long run, at least as far as ongoing film production goes. They might finally understand what kind of niche business model they need to be to keep going forward.
But color film for "scanning only"?? Heck, film scanners themselves are an endangered species. What would be the point in even making and shooting film? That sounds more like business suicide than anything realistic. Any legacy company which forgets their roots entirely is just plained doomed. Even Fuji has the wisdom to still call themselves Fujifilm, even though they make darn little film anymore. But it does tie into them still being the primary provider of color printing paper, in terms of the psychology of it. What if Nikon decided they could make more money on swimming pools rather than cameras and lenses - would anyone buy a swimming pool just because it had a Nikon logo on it?
Kodak made a massive mistake when they took once abundant cash reserves and used them to buy back their own stocks rather than investing in new infrastructure, or refining and materializing extant R&D. And in their case, Winter arrived early, along with a lot of digital Night Walkers. But that very kind of mistake was quite popular among CEO's at the time, and tanked plenty of manufacturers besides Kodak. Now there simply isn't any more wiggle room for that kind of roll of the dice. Perhaps that's the best for everyone in the long run, at least as far as ongoing film production goes. They might finally understand what kind of niche business model they need to be to keep going forward.
But color film for "scanning only"?? Heck, film scanners themselves are an endangered species. What would be the point in even making and shooting film? That sounds more like business suicide than anything realistic. Any legacy company which forgets their roots entirely is just plained doomed. Even Fuji has the wisdom to still call themselves Fujifilm, even though they make darn little film anymore. But it does tie into them still being the primary provider of color printing paper, in terms of the psychology of it. What if Nikon decided they could make more money on swimming pools rather than cameras and lenses - would anyone buy a swimming pool just because it had a Nikon logo on it?
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Yeah, I think it was alright. I don't know exactly how that deal transpired and what its details were. There's a chance I'll find out one day (not that it matters). It most likely had a lot to do with the film factory and said store being in the same town, and people in the industry knowing each other.
Nope, all color film has been optimized for scanning.
Though even movie film needs to be able to be contact printed occasionally.
Optical printing with an enlarger of color still films has to be incredibly rare, like 500 ppm.
I have a suspicion you're off by an order of magnitude or two.
Clearly you have different moral values that I have.
Those figures I wrote ARE my personal choice, period.
Never called anyone immoral (you do), I've simply said that reselling films at 20x the initial cost is not ethical (in the following sense, not in the immoral sense), that is a thing that shouldn't be done. It is done anyway, fine.
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior
Of course anyone has the freedom to sell whatever she/he wants and whatever prices is intended to be.
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Well, 5ppm still ain't much
Doesn't change anything about the fun of printing RA4 from negatives, though.
Recently in the US Bed, Bath and Beyond was cash rich so they engaged in a massive stock by back campaign. The market turned and suddenly they had no cash reserves to wait through the change, they were not able to pay their bills and were forced into bankruptcy.
The 'film' in Fujifilm does not necessarily relate to photographic film. It refers to the generic term for any thin layer of material.
> But color film for "scanning only"??
There's not a whole lot of people optically printing from color film. RA4 paper isn't tailored to do this anymore, either - it's all made for digital exposure. The vast bulk of color film, whether still or cine, ends up scanned - and perhaps discarded as soon as that's done. Insofar it's being printed, which isn't a whole lot to begin with, it mostly happens through digital (scanned) intermediates.
It's one of those realities that just 'is' - there's no point in denying it, or somehow making a fuss about it. Just a fact of life.
The rest of us need to realize that there are self appointed special people who have a secret special connection to the cosmos, universe, unicorns and tinfoil hats that know that the boards of directors of the film companies have compiled a list of a special few of the world's population, that the boards concentrate on. The boards carefully study these few people and look to figure out exactly what would cause them the most pain by manipulating film prices and then proceed to use that information to raise film prices. Those targeted "special people" are the self same one's noted above, and they and they alone have the secret knowledge when the rest of us are being gouged. We must listen to these harbingers of the perfect truth when they tell us that the film companies are gouging us. We are unable to make such decisions and we must listen to them!
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