The reasons given for mixing your own are all valid and admirable, and I do plan to try a few things myself, but it seems to be something of a double edged sword. When we say that factory developers are "overpriced", we are really only saying "cost more than I feel like paying". They are not "overpriced". If they were, other manufacturers would be rushing in as new competitors to take advantage of this earnings bonanza. I look at it as the film side of production and sales supporting the continued existence of the chemical side, and vice versa. It is in my best interest to support the manufacturers by buying their products; I'm not doing that to help them, I'm doing it to help me.
If a company is profitable enough to remain in business by making and providing both film and chemicals, and then tomorrow nobody bought chemicals from them, they must do one of two things, either raise the prices of their film stocks, as we have seen, or go out of business entirely. There is no free lunch..if they can't make money on one side of the business, they need to raise the prices on the goods on the other side, it is not unrelated.
I'm not shilling for Kodak, Fuji, or Ilford, but we can't complain --and we do--about the rising costs of film, or the loss of certain emulsion, if we don't support them; and they need our money, not our moral support, in order to continue to be there for us.
Please understand, I'm not disagreeing with anyone here, just mentioning what goes through my mind when I place an order for D-76 or HC-110, which isn't even all that expensive to begin with, given what I can do with it.
