I totally concur. When I was in the Navy in the 1980s, we were taught to troubleshoot down to the component level. I had one piece of gear (an ESM receiver) from 1948. Still worked, still needed tweaking to keep it running...40 years later. Flash forward 20 years to this week. I bought a Bolex 16mm camera, and it had an old GE light meter in the kit. I started playing with it last night. It still works fine and give the same readings as my modern Sekonic. It's a 1950 model. Looking at the manual, I find this at the back, "Your General Electric is warranted for the lifetime of the device..." Obviously, because a company wants repeat customers. If you got a lifetime warranty with any modern device, wouldn't you be more inclined to buy it, and buy again from that company? Or would you prefer to buy from the bulk of companies today that plan for their devices to be used about 1 year, break, and be thrown away? I'd say Fuji is doing something that will retrain and attract a lot of customers. Maybe your friends don't care, maybe most of the current generation don't remember a time when a company stood by it's products. Did you know that replacement car parts used to be available for all models, from the manufacturer, for years and decades after the model year came out? I.E. you could buy 1957 Ford parts in 1970 at any dealer.
