Bill, once again, you have no idea what you're talking about. Painting was commercially very important prior to photography's invention, enormous numbers of professional artists earned middle class and sometimes higher incomes painting portraits, signs, illustrations, etc.
OK, fair enough. Most of that was done in by printing, not photography. And photography was quite good at ruining the livelihood of silhouette painters, who worked for those who could not afford to pay for painted portraits. Those who could afford to pay for painted portraits could also afford to pay for Daguerreotype portraits, and did. Photography also did some damage to the technical illustrator.
There's still a little work left for illustrators but most of them also do graphic design because there isnt enough work for illustration alone anymore, outside of a few stars. In the past large numbers of largely unknown artists worked and earned a living, that's gone. Painting declined as a commercial art form in the 19th century and was basically a fine-art only type of art from the beginning of the 20th. It wasn't until the 19th century that the 'starving artist' became a cultural icon.
As I stated previously, painting was never an everyman's pursuit, which photography was. Painting may well have declined, but it didn't die, wasn't predicted to die, and photography didn't kill it. The two have precious little to do with each other.
No one has 'repeatedly' said that the barrier to entry in making artist paints is low.
I have.
It is not. It involves working with extremely toxic powdered chemicals that are heavily regulated by the government and making good paints requires special machines that grind the powdered pigments into finer particles while mixing them into the linseed oil base. Artists did make thier own paints until the 1700's. They often didn't live long.
And anyone can make their own paint now. It may not be good paint, and it may well be toxic, but it's not hard to do. Making film, on the other hand, is not something an average guy can do in his garage, nor will that come to pass. I repeat - the bar to entry for making art supplies is far lower than the bar to entry to making photographic film.
In any case, no one here who uses film gives a damn about consumers or mainstream markets anymore than Windsor & Newton or Gamblin or Schminke, or Old Holland or Grumbacher does (those are oil paint manufacturers, all still in business). Mainstream consumers don't buy oil paints, haven't for a century or more (painting was a popular hobby in the 19th century and into the early 20th...Winston Churchill among others did it for fun). Today mainstream consumers don't buy film. Artists and hobbyists do, just like with artists paints.
All of which means nothing. Photography survives because it is (rapidly, was) a mainstream pursuit, with prices driven low by massive consumer consumption and production. If and when photographic film output declines to the level of painting, we'll see if the market can sustain the kind of prices that would have to be charged to create a roll of film for a 10,000 roll per year market versus a 10,000,000 roll per year market.
What the hell do I know though, I'm just a professional artist with a degree in art who is working on a degree in art history. So I don't have a clue what I'm talking about compared to the IT dude who knows EVERYTHING about....art?
First, your degree doesn't make you smart, it makes you educated. Yay you. I gots me a degree too. Whoo-hoo and so what?
Second, I wasn't discussing art, I was discussing history and business, and to a lesser extent, economics. Tell me how your art degree qualifies you in those subjects.
