Cameramakers missed the Wi-Fi bandwagon on the road to obsolescence
The day of the standalone digital camera has passed for all but professional photographers and those who aren’t paid for their work but have particular needs a phone’s built-in camera can’t meet. Smartphones won by making photos easy to share online.
This isn’t discounting the fact that a smartphone became the camera you always had with you, requiring one fewer gadget and its accompanying batteries and cables when traveling. Early smartphone cameras were of often terrible quality but convenient—now they’re both terrific and convenient. And I’ve talked to many professional photographers for whom a smartphone isn’t a replacement for their DSLRs or mirrorless cameras, lenses, and flashes, but a supplement—a choice that they can reach for, and sometimes reach for first.
Cameramakers had a window of time that stretched over 10 years during which they could have proven their relevance to casual and somewhat more serious photographers. They had a chance to carve out a niche that smartphones would have been contending against, and fight to be the second device someone opted by choice to carry along.
Instead they blew it by insisting on walled gardens or deals with a handful of photo services. They almost entirely missed social sharing, and they continue to misfire today.