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Comment by GlibMonkeyDeath | Hacker News Reader

I'd encourage people to look at the history of Fujifilm (the Japanese peer to Kodak) to see why they didn't fail, but Kodak did.

https://petapixel.com/why-kodak-died-and-fujifilm-thrived-a-...

TL;DR: Fujifilm diversified quickly, Kodak clung to the film business for far too long.

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That’s not an accurate summary of the article. The problem was that Kodak stuck to the photography business for too long. As the article states, in the early 2000s they were the number one seller of digital cameras. It just turns out making consumer digital cameras was a “crappy business” as their CEO went on to say. Fujifilm diversified into healthcare, cosmetics, and making LCD display films.

What's crazy is that Fujifilm now, once again, makes more money on photographic film than anything else they do, thanks to how popular the Instax instant cameras are.

That's just how wildly profitable film is.

So Kodak clung to the design of one product, but Fujifilm diversified?

Yep, that's completely different from the post you replied to.

It sounds like you’re being sarcastic, but yes, it is indeed completely different. The person I responded to said that Kodak clung to the film business too long, implying they did not embrace digital cameras. The reality is that despite embracing digital photography they still failed. The idea that they stuck with film too long is a common trope that the parent poster was repeating even though the article itself disagreed.

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