There was a period in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s when Nikon’s sales were relatively low, and primarily to professionals and high-end enthusiasts. Then, there was a film boom, driven by the development of lower-cost point-and shoot film cameras. This started about 1985, peaked about 1995, and was gone by about 2001. It wasn’t a high peak- more rounded off looking.
Then, starting in the very late 90s, digital cameras came onto the scene, and there was a HUGE boom- when the digital era got going and film/digital overlapped, their sales were still almost as large as they’d been in 1995 when film cameras were at their peak.
From there, it went crazy, and both digital p&s and DSLR sales climbed rapidly until about 2013, when smartphones stole their thunder, and their sales declined almost as fast, leaving Nikon with sales numbers for their high-end DSLRs and mirrorless cameras that were oddly similar to the ones prior to the film boom in 1985.
I might be happy with a merger with United Airlines; in the New York area, United flies only to Newark while JetBlue has many flights to JFK, so if that allowed me to take United to JFK, it would be convenient for me.
I suspect if United bought them they’re probably get rid of most of the JFK flights since they’re redundant with their Newark hub. I imagine they’d at least keep some flights to their other hubs, though, IIRC United’s management has stated that they regret pulling out of JFK completely.
JetBlue owns Terminal 5 at JFK so this would give United quite a large presence there. Southwest has always been a 737-only airline so I don’t know what they would do with the Airbus planes in the JetBlue fleet.
They have dealt with that before with AirTran and their 717 fleet (they subleased them all to Delta). But AirTran at least had some 737s. JetBlue has none.
And as a minor pedantic nitpick, Southwest has has flown a handful of 727s in the past, so they haven’t quite always been an all 737 airline.
I agree with this. Both as a customer going back to the St Louis days and as someone who dealt with the company as a consultant and even interviewed there for a position a few years ago.
Maybe the quality went down a little from 2000 to 2015, at least the serving sizes went down and the prices went up. But it was a solid place to get a good quick meal, much better than fast food.
But the last 6-7 years has been a complete shit show. When I interviewed there in 2021, it became very clear why the company had cratered in the ten years since I’d done some consulting work for them. The level of arrogance and contempt for their customers’ discernment was staggering. Their plan seems to have been to lower standards for both food and service to juice up margins which would entice mega-franchisees to open new locations even if comp sales declined. This was supposed to end in an IPO where JAB got its investment back and then some, before the whole thing cratered.
Spoiler alert: their customers were more averse to being served up crap than they anticipated, but they are doubling down on the strategy. I think the IPO has been “delayed” three times so far.
My guess is they’ll abandon individual, monthly issues and start publishing graphic novels at some point. If you go to one of the big box bookstores, you’ll likely see a section devoted to graphic novels and Japanese manga. I don’t know if it’ll be within the next decade though.
what makes you think Archie won’t still be publishing comics? They’re almost the only comics around that kids actually read, and they’re readily available at every supermarket checkout stand.
I’m not Bosda, but print comics – especially for reading by children, rather than adult collectors – are suffering from the same thing that all print media are: increasingly being replaced in consumers’ lives by electronic versions. Archie might still be around as a brand, but actual print comic books for digital-first kids are probably an endangered species.
What!?! Almost everyone isn’t interested in taking close-ups of a chickadee eating a spider from 20’ away? What are they taking pictures of then? Tourist scenery? Their meals? Their pets? Their spouses? Their filthy, filthy children at a birthday party!?!?
Yeah, DSLRs and the like are never (for some variable of “never”) going away because I suspect optical physics is going to set a hard limit to how much you can achieve with digital zooms and in challenging environments. But actual cameras are pretty much just for dedicated hobbyists and professionals these days. I usually don’t even bother carrying wide lens much anymore for landscapes (once in awhile) because my cellphone is good enough for me most days. I’m still the guy who wants to get a close-up of that wee bird eating a spider, but “normal” people usually don’t have those kinds of crippling hang-ups and just want a picture of their cat .
I would agree. Camera phones replaced the inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras people used to take photos of their vacations or other special occasions. While you can get some good pictures even with a camera phone, they’re not going to replace DSLRs anytime soon. You want a good photo of a sandhill crane in flight? Your iPhone isn’t going to cut it.
I know people have been talking about the impending doom of the comic book industry for years, but it’s certainly been shrinking for decades. When I was a wee lad, I could find comic books at my local grocery store, some convenience stores (7-11 and the like), book stores at the mall like Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, and of course the dedicated comic book store. Other than an Archie Digest, I can’t remember the last time I saw a comic book at a supermarket or a convenience store.
to clarify, the 32 page monthly floppy comic book is now a boutique specialty item you have to pretty much order out of a special catalog every month and pick up at your local specialty retailer. The days of that format being “mass media” are long gone. Marvel and DC are owned by giant media conglomerates which subsidize their publication as a loss-leader and IP farm, and there are a number of smaller comic book companies that manage to turn a profit and survive in this environment. Archie as a line managed to avoid the various disasters that smacked the comic book world, and they’ve cheerfully continued to publish comics in a wide variety of formats that people actually read, instead of relying on a dwindling non-reading audience addicted to foil-stamped prebagged multiple cover fake-collectibles.
Anyways, my response was to the statement that Archie Comics as a company wouldn’t be around in ten years, not specifically about which particular format will be delivering adventures of Betty and Veronica and Jughead and, say, Cricket O’Dell. Archie is doing OK.
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