Speaking as someone who works with a massive photographic printing company, Kodak did this to themselves. Over the last 10 years they became the sole industrial scale supplier of silver halide paper which is used in the chemical photographic printing process. Being a monopoly, they did what monopolies do and jacked up the price again and again until it became prohibitively expensive to use. Print producers have since switched to high speed roll fed inkjet solutions and Kodak are now fucked by their own greed.

Pure c-level corpo greed. Film photography has had an insane resurgence, even before covid. They secured hundreds of millions on top of that in goverment contracts. To be broke after all that influx of cash, insane imho.

In a twist of irony, it was a Kodak engineer who created the first digital camera—but, fearing the innovation would cannibalize their current product, the company sat on the invention.

A perfect example of the strength and weaknesses of our species’ instincts in context of modernity.

Kodak has also leaned into nostalgia with hundreds of brick-and-mortar retail stores, which are particularly popular internationally. Despite the brand’s trendiness, Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, told The New York Times he found the trademark licensing “striking’” and “sad,” suggesting a sense of desperation in the Kodak brand.

Second wave nostalgia is a powerful thing. Just look at the rise of vinyl (and even actually tapes) or games that leverage retro themes/gameplay/properties.

Kodak has been on its death bed for 30 years. Just stop your death rattle and go…