Improved kit lenses!

A lot of people want a better camera than a phone or P&S camera. They buy a camera with interchangeable lenses but look around at tourist traps: 90% or so of the people are using their camera with just the kit lens and do not appear to have other lenses with them. In this era of the market being influenced by social networks, if the camera+kit lens is bad because the kit lens is bad the camera will get a lot of negative "press". That hurts sales. The reality is that while we discuss the plethora of lenses available a large majority of average consumers just use cameras with only the kit lens. So that lens has to be pretty good. (It may be slow because consumers do not understand aperture anyway, but it should be sharp.)

I used to follow Canon since I bought a 300D with kit lens early 2004. The kit lens was usable but certainly not great, but Canon too improved the kit lenses considerably, as needed for the increasing number of megapixels.

Most of my friends and colleagues are much more ignorant about camera gear than I am (and I don't pretend to know much either). They see my pictures are technically better than anything they could do and then ask what camera I use. I hope they do not simply act upon that. If they get an E-M5 with kit lens they would still not get the pictures I'm getting with the 12-40/2.8 and 40-150/2.8. It's not just a matter of what they can afford or are willing to spend, it's a matter of simply not understanding the difference other than price. Many of us in this forum are gearheads. The vast majority of the population buying similar cameras is not.