We live is a world with a distorted notion of success. About 1/2 the people I know who take photography seriously use Canon cameras. I'm also a happy Canon customer. How is this a sinking ship?
I know lots of historically loyal Canon shooters who have recently switched to Sony A or Nikon Z; I know others who are seriously considering a Panasonic DC-S1 or a Fuji GFX 100. I don't know anyone who has gone the other way. That's really not a good place to be.
It's obvious from the heavy price cutting that EOS M is struggling. EOS R isn't a disaster, but it's a big disappointment. Canon are still lagging well behind Sony in sensor quality and Panasonic in video functionality; their mirrorless offerings aren't capitalising on Canon's historical advantage in terms of ergonomics.
Canon still make good cameras and good lenses, but there's no obvious reason to buy into the Canon ecosystem unless you're an existing Canon customer, nor is there any sign of Canon turning things around.
> About 1/2 the people I know who take photography seriously use Canon cameras. I'm also a happy Canon customer.
Social groups tend somewhat towards the same system, so this might have distorted the preferences of you and your acquaintances.
Also Canon is doing badly _now_. People aren't buying their _new_ stuff. You and your acquaintances likely own, for the most part, equipment that's at least a few years old.
Why should a bubble of casual-photographers exiting the DSLR market be enough to sink Canon? The serious photographer market should be enough to sustain the business (it's not like these things are sold at a loss), but investors in pursuit of infinite growth might not like that.
Canon needs the consumer market to subsidize R&D costs for the professional lines. I'm sure the they're not selling at a unit loss, but like all R&D heavy manufacturing industries, there's a lot of fixed capex that's easier to offset with high volume offerings.
This might be one of the failure modes of the current incarnation of capitalism. My Canon cameras last me forever and that's why I like them. I consider them a blazing technical and scientific success.
If under the current mode of capitalism they want to "succeed" financially they might need to make crappier cameras on purpose so that people replace them every year.
Crocs are also amazing. I bought a pair and never needed to buy another pair. Bad for their balance sheet, but they are an amazing success in terms of sustainability and not creating trash.
Mean time between cameras has probably been increasing due to the very high quality of DSLRs for a decade now. Upgrades aren’t really worth it and there’s better things to spend money on if one wants to improve: lighting, triggers, lenses, supports, and travel!
Film cameras used to last a very long time in the range, Nikon, for example, went from the F to the F4 in forty years. Around ten years between the pro cameras. That’s down to about four years now. My 1DX shows no signs of needing replacement, despite wanting WiFi and GPS, everything is great, and despite fewer pixels than the previous 5D2, enlarges to wall-size without drama. The iPhone takes care of casual use, and a £110 Fuji XM1 covers everyday carry. A secondhand digital camera from six years ago is good enough and costs around £100. Well, why upgrade indeed?
