Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period.
Wait one minute.
Does he really think people are that stupid?
More people can take pictures than at the height of Kodak’s wealth.
Because cameras are now inside phones and tablets — not to mention standalone digital cameras themselves. People who would have never been able to before take thousands of photos can now do so, cheaply. Without having a middleman extracting money between clicking and seeing.
And there are probably more employees around the world making those cameras (or camera elements) than there ever were employed by Kodak.
To blame the Internet for the downfall of Kodak is to sidestep the bad decisions of Kodak’s management. And what about Polaroid and its bad decisions? And Fuji Film and its bad decisions?