I have nothing against using a camera. I just end up not. Will try to do more photography, is what I will say. Thanks for the encouragement! Now, if I can get that permanent job so that I can indulge in that GR! 
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What I donāt understand is the following. Various discontinued small cameras from 10ā5 years back sell for an amazing markup: the Ricoh GR III (especially the 40mm equiv x, which will not have a VI version), the Panasonic GM5, the Olympus Pen-F, all kinds of compact zooms.
I understand that the companies who made these cannot just restart production instantly, even though they have the blueprints: some components are no longer made, you have to setup the production lines, etc. But I am guessing that it would take way less time to bring a dusted off version to market than a completely new camera.
Yet for some reason it is not happening. Is it because the margins would be so low? I doubt that, again, we are not talking about cutting edge tech. Would it draw customers away from their existing, more expensive cameras? This is also unlikely, as the use cases for small-EDC-with-compromises and top-of-the-line MILC do not overlap much. So I remain puzzled.
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Are we sure that the markup on used small cameras is directly related to market volume and not just tik-tok hype?
Is that right? Did a quick search and didnāt find any comment from Ricoh.
(Not doubting it, just nice to know details. Thanks)
Well, what is known is that they have not announced a GR IVx, but will keep producing the GR IIIx. The rest is just assumptions on my part.
I canāt disentangle the two. But it is a fact that small cameras are (1) useful for some purposes, (2) not being produced at the moment. So my guess is that, for whatever reason, demand exceeds supply.
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The GRIIIx is quite a new camera, once they finish the release cycle for the GRIV, they may start working on the GRIVx. Iām just speculating, but Ricoh may not have as many resources as other big camera manufacturers, they need to take it easy 
Edit: Okay, nevermind. Ricoh employs 90k people. I had no idea they were still so big and was talking purely based on their camera sector and market share (Ricoh and Pentax together)
I am more puzzled by Olympus not selling their Olympus PEN E-P7 in the USA. To get one I need to buy it via eBay as a used camera(most look like a never open box).
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For one thing, the EU now requires USB-C charging, so that will cause at least minor design changes. But more importantly, table stakes have been raised. What used to be good enough AF now is a potential social media meltdown. Touch screens are the norm, wireless connectivity is required, video features are nonnegotiable.
Add to that that the old CPUs and sensors are probably no longer available. And nobody knows if the compact camera craze will be sustainable.
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The 90k employees is probably all of Ricoh? I would not be surprised if the consumer camera unit were just a very tiny fraction of the total.
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Yeah, printers, general imaging etc, but still, even if the camera department is small, they can finance it with the aid of the rest of the company, since it must give some nice R&D returns. This is not true for a new camera only company
for a lot of reasons.
Components being unavailable is one important reason. When a new camera is designed, itās designed to use a lot of available components, which most of the time are produced for a few years. When you try to restart the production of the camera most of the components arenāt available anymore in the numbers you need, so you have to get some company to restart the production of them, with they might not want to do (if the production lines are at full capacity or the new batch is to small) or might not be able to do (new equipment which cannot produce the old stuff?), or might not be able to promise a time frame.
If itās not only one component, but 10 or 15 (and that happens), then itās a logistical nightmare, independent of how small the components are. The supply chain of any product made from multiple components is complicated.
That means you canāt plan, but you have to. Production line capacity needs to be allocated a long time before the production starts. Ordering weeks or months of production (and maybe some days of downtime to switch something) is highly risky if you arenāt sure you canāt get all the components in time.
Thatās the most important reason: You canāt plan it.
Another reason for not restarting a production might be licenses. If you need some software/firmware licenses, and need to come up which 10000 more after a few years, most software producers understand what they can do to you. Believe me, they understand it.
Well, maybe that changed in the last 15 years, but i donāt think so 
Then thereās the brand image. If the image is that of a brand with the best and newest stuff, then the company will have to think about it.
Building an older product again might be seen as a admission of a mistake. Depends on the persons involved, but there a some tin gods in industry.
Last, but not least, thereās the management side. The C-level of any big company has a degree of risk aversion, and they work with people who know whatās sure to work in the current market. They can be confident about the planning of a new product generation based on the current one, though theyād still make a market analysis, of course. There is high degree of conservative thinking there.
Building an old product again after a few years is totally different. Things are not done that way. Nobody does that, and no one is confident about something like that.
I never was involved in the camera business, but cameras are consumer products, and the same rules apply to any of them.
Regards, Uwe
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Yeah, I also with that were the case - but their priorities can of course be completely different.
I tried to look at the ricoh.com website what kind of products the make: all kinds of stuff, from intelligent whiteboards to camera systems for monitoring road pavement quality and cameras for estimating the risk of landslidesā¦
It could be that their industrial imaging products are much more challenging than any of the consumer cameras they now make. So all the work they do on the consumer products does not translate to a benefit for the other imaging product lines.
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they make photocopiers etc and I presume laser printers and whatnot, but it would only make sense for them to allocate extra money to cameras if itād make them more than using it some other way
Ricohās camera divisions (Pentax, Ricoh are separate now) are a tiny, tiny part of Ricoh imaging which are a small part of Ricoh.
I think camera makers are very careful and very afraid of launching the wrong camera. They probably donāt know if they can trust the compact trend.
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You can probably tell based on my many comments over the last few months, that this is a subject Iāve thought a lot about recently, especially as Iām in the market for an affordable compact camera (affordable is of course relative).
When you start researching, shopping and engaging in discussions with others in the same boat, you start to wonder why companies like Panasonic and Olympus have seemingly abandoned their popular compact lines at exactly the time when they are in the most demand. Surely the GX lines and PEN lines would sell like hot cakes in this market, especially if they are priced reasonably.
I donāt have the exact answers, but itās always down to money. We can get into all the business, production and marketing nuances, but essentially itās money. Can they make enough profit to justify the costs? I also think weāre seeing the results of the skewed market where the big players like Sony and Canon have so much more money for R&D than companies like Ricoh and OM System. Itās another reason why I hate brand fandom, because we need as much competition as possible for innovation.
I agree with @nosle that I think many companies are very wary that the compact camera enthusiasm is just a trend, and that it will die down and/or phones will threaten them again just like last time. But I think we need more risk takers. Fuji has shown that taking risks pays off. And just like vinyl and film, there will always be enthusiasts for compact cameras. In my opinion, a phone will never replace cameras fully. And thatās because they are not cameras. They are mini computers that can be used for photography, but they will always occupy a different niche, even if the mass market is happy enough with them.
One more point I want to make is that companies can benefit greatly from āloss leadersā. So, sometimes a product that makes little to no profit can still be very valuable for your brand as a whole. OM System might not have lots of money for R&D, but if they keep a healthy PEN line ticking along, for example, then they will avoid being dismissed as a niche manufacturer and also potentially shake off their new reputation for a lack of innovation. Most people want to invest in a system that is healthy and has a future, so I think itās important for them not to look like theyāre dying, even if theyāre not.
Similarly Ricoh/Pentax could really do with expanding their lines. I think they, along with perhaps DJI, have a real opportunity in the compact segment.
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Iāve been watching a few Pixel 10 reviews yesterday. Interestingly, several reviewers said things like āthis feels too much like a computerā, and āsmartphone cameras have plateauedā, ālooks like a smartphone pictureā.
Perhaps weāre slowly realizing that the dream of the āDSLR in your pocketā was actually a marketing lie all along. I sure hope so. I am incredibly weary of the smartphone look.
On another forum, Iāve asked around if there are smartphones that have more of a camera look to them. One poster said I should look into some of the Chinese manufacturers. They seem to deploy bigger sensors at least. Anyway, Iām not in the market for a new phone, and after a recent Pixel SNAFU, my next phone will surely be a Fairphone.
Also, these phones have become expensive. Even my somewhat GASeous camera spending doesnāt come close to the price of the annual updates of some of my iPhone-toting colleagues. And they mostly upgrade āfor the camerasā, too. Crazy.
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So did everyone else. Canon, Nikon, and Sony also had great compact cameras, Panasonic and Olympus are not special in this context.
Despite various explanations proposed here, I remain puzzled.
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Yeah, Xiaomi deploys 1" sensors. Pixel has used the same sensor since the Pixel 6, so all improvements have been computational. I think Samsung is stuck on the same 200MP sensor as well. After all, MILC sensors have plateaued, smartphones had to follow the same path Maybe this will actually push manufacturers towards some serious sensor improvements in the next decade.
On the Fairphone front, I have just received a Fairphone 6, to replace my aging Pixel 6 as the battery was already dying and pretty weakened. Couple that with the famous Pixel 6 weak modem/power hungry CPU and itās not worth the trouble of keeping. I didnāt buy it because of the repair-ability even if thatās a plus, but due to their environmental and work policies(a bit of the phone sale goes to the workers to provide a living wage).
So far so good, the phone is fast enough for my needs, aka, no gaming or heavy social media apps, merely pixls.us, hacker news, signal, discord, red reader and symphonium. People complained about the weak CPU but as long as it stays this fast for its lifetime, itās perfect. I would advise you not to buy the case, as it makes the phone extremely bulky and the benefits of the case are outweighed buy your ability to replace the screen and cameras yourself if any of them break. I also dislike the really rounded edges, it feels like the margins are gone and it stresses me out more than it should, maybe with time I will come to accept it and not be bothered by it. The screen is much better than the Pixel 6. The cameras are passable, canāt compete with the Pixel 6 and later Pixel flagships, but for me itās okay since I have dedicated cameras. Open Camera and Secure Camera make using the camera a better experience.
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Thank you for your thoughts on the Fairphone! One of our Pixel 6a got that infamous software update that bricked the battery to 4h of charge (just outside of warranty, obviously). Of course all the repair centers were immediately out of 6a batteries, so I had to order a new phone. In the event, I was able to buy a repair kit, and replace the battery myself, so the new phone went back unopened.
But I noticed that all our phone purchases in the last years were due to some hardware failure that couldnāt be repaired in the field. We had Fairphones earlier, which we just repaired ourselves. So our next phones will surely be Fairphones again. But only once our 6a are no longer viable. Theyāre still perfectly adequate phones.
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Iām still confused what these pixel counts on these phones actually mean. I realise they line skip or something but 200MP sensor on a phone doesnāt seem like it can be real.