About Kodak and Freestyle Arista Premium ... it probably also helps to keep the wheels turning when you have god knows how many kilometers of frozen Tri-X stock in a vault somewhere!
Very interesting that this kind of thread always has so much life, and that so many of us are so emotionally involved in the future of film.
In any case...
I can see that if Kodak has huge stocks of Tri-X stashed in the freezer, and if they can't sell it off in their boxes at their prices, it makes sense to dump the stuff to Freestyle. But, cash flow or no, if the market could absorb the Tri-X, it would on the market as Tri-X.
Also, that part of the discussion rests on the assumption that the film Freestyle is selling is, in fact, Tri-X. Do we really know that it is? In the retail grocery market, many name-brand producers also make the store-band products that sit on shelves. Those store-band products often differ in some fashion from the name-brand lines. I.e., for the sake of argument, it's corn in the Green Giant can, and it's corn from Green-Giant in the store-brand can, but it isn't necessarily the same corn harvested from the same sources and produced in exactly the same fashion.
Much of this debate really hinges on whether one believes that the speciality market for film -- pro photographers, artists, and people who haunt these and similar venues -- is large enough to sustain production of consumer-grade film by large corporations like Kodak, Fuji and even Ilford.
My position is that it isn't. So, I'd argue that at some future undetermined date Fuji and Kodak will drop everything they consider consumer-grade film. Ilford's line will be rationalized, i.e., shrink. Fuji and Kodak, depending on who or what owns them at the time, may boost prices on pro films and keep going with those. Or, not. The key notion to understand is that the future of film at Kodak, and probably Fuji, is out of the hands of people who might want film to continue. It's in the hands of people who are obligated to squeeze the biggest profit out of the corporation.
We can debate on when to schedule film's funeral. But, I think there is little argument that film is becoming increasingly invisible in mainstream retail channels in the U.S. New film cameras have been invisible for years now. If someone wants to take up film photography, they need to buy from speciality suppliers.
[EDIT: Chris, I don't think people are arguing that film "MUST" die, in the sense that they are calling for its demise. However, it seems a futile exercise to deny that film is vanishing from the consciousness of mainstream consumers and, hence, from the shelves of the stores where they shop. Speciality films may well survive for some years in a specialty market, selling to pros who can pass costs along and to some enthusiasts.]
