Please all stop buying legacy lenses

Tom Caldwell wrote:

It is a bit like how the IBM PC was unleashed on the world. IBM was in a hurry so they didn't bother to patent much of the design. They were sure it wouldn't sell much and even at IBM prices there was little "profit" in it for them. They made personal computers popular because they could not control pricing and clone manufacturers proliferated by selling at realistic pricing.

The same thing in digital cameras. A new mount has few lenses for a time so some manufacturers make it easier for users to mount legacy lenses. This gives these devoted users a great variety of lenses to choose from. However ultimately the manufacturers really want to sell their cheap to make, dear to sell, lenses to a market locked in to their camera mount. The trick is how to make it harder to to mount legacy lenses once that manufacturer has caught up a range of lenses. If they make it too hard these new legacy lens owners are certain to desert that particular brand for another more friendly mount system. If they sell their new purpose built lenses at too high a price they also tend to make ownership of legacy lenses more attractive.

Either the legacy lens prices go up because of demand and the fact that they are no longer made or new cheaper to make lenses come down in price to make them more attractive to buy. My guess is that the business model of the manufacturers is hoping that the former is true.

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Tom Caldwell