I see evidence all around me of much more film interest than when I began using film 6 or so years ago: at the tech startup I work at I have two colleagues who've recently started using film; at my kids' school there are parents who've switched (and unfortunately started badgering me with questions about scanners and labs, and so on). One of those dads told me about his friend whose daughter goes to the same gym class as my daughter who's recently bought a film Leica.
Another dad whose kids used to go to the same nursery as my kids has become a fanatical film user - even developing his own film. I met him in the crush of the latest film-camera 'yard sale' I was at in March - there were thousands of people at that event, mostly younger people.
I mentor at one of Sweden's leading tech schools, and I'm amazed at how many students are using film cameras. None of them are using DSLRs (it's either iPhone or film).
When I go to the lab with my film these days, I almost always have to stand in line. That never used to happen 5 years ago.
After my vacation I got my films developed for a lower price, in return for waiting longer than a week - because the workload was just too much for the lab at the time.
New films being released almost all the time at the moment. Looking forward to Ektachrome soon.
Also looking forward to getting my Kickstarter LabBox - have to wait a bit longer, because of delays due to the overwhelming over-subscription.
Been trying to get hold of a couple film cameras that I chose not to buy 3 or 4 years back - but since then the price has spiraled crazily upwards.
Anyways, carry on thinking "there hasn't been an analog resurgence" if the negativity makes you feel better.
It's just math
industrial film production to keep prices at the historical expectations from 0 years ago would require industrial film consumption.
The latter requires a staggering film resurgence, in the billions of $$$ per year more than what we see now. When an industry has so much oversupply and industrial capacity, all current users have to pay t keep the excess capacity lights on. This is not an industry that can downscale readily.
In North America the decline in labs continues, and the same is said for most of East Asia. The lab market is turning almost exclusively into a salvage market, too, where used machines prevent any new lab processors from being made. Frontier and Fuji have effectively shut their lines down. Without mass production, prices for film stay high. Without mass consumption facilitated by expanding, not contracting lab access, the price of film + processing stays high, and both are likely to climb higher.
Lomo once had a full locale-driven website to get people to buy their film and process at a local lab, but the main feedback they encountered was that film prices + processing were too high. This led to negative publicity to Lomo took that web portal down. Selling a $90 camera and then having your consumer confronted with each roll costing $9 and processing + scanning + printing costing another $17 was a hard sell.
Camera pricing represents a salvage market, not a consumption market. We've seen the exact same in out of production cars, like VW Beetles etc. Film has massive oversupply capacity, the end consumer having tp pick up those hot idle costs, and the camera market is losing product to disrepair at an accelerating rate (lots of academic literature on that phenomenon) leading to rising salvage market (read: "collectible") costs.
Sorry, there is no effective film resurgence. IN the last 2 years in the US and Canada tens of thousands of local labs have been shuttered. That is how you measure demand. By the end use access where the last bit of $$$ crosses the counter. In the last 6 months in my country a 900 store chain quietly eliminated all in-store processing labs. They only do website digital photo printing now. The last 3 remaining store chains that still offer lab processing are about to do the same.
