Second-hand Fujifilm shortage on ebay & prices going up?

AyeYo wrote:

Jerry-astro wrote:

AyeYo wrote:

UsherFellig wrote:

And in less than 24 hours, the Fuji X100S I flagged as newly in at KEH is gone. No surprise--when super-nice-condition examples in the X100 series land there, they don't usually stay long. This is probably a fair example of what some posts are pointing out in this thread. One suspects it could be a combination of collectors and market pressures triggered by the shortages.

I think as was pointed out in another thread, there's not a huge incentive to buy the lastest gen Fuji gear, plus it's constantly out of stock. So new people wanting to get into Fuji are going for older gear.

So, let me get this straight. You claim that there isn't a "huge incentive" for people to buy the latest Fuji gear, yet it appears to be "constantly out of stock." So, your suggestion here must be that Fujifilm is only building a very limited number of cameras for which there is apparently decent demand? Who knows... you might be right, but what evidence would you offer to support the contention that sales are under expectations other than yet just another opinion on the internet? The fact that you might be underwhelmed with the latest offerings doesn't necessarily suggest that sales are weak, or do you have some additional data to offer (or something I might have missed earlier) to support that contention?

Why take my word for it when the CEO himself made it abundantly clear that the camera division isn't a money maker and is likely a money loser?

Fuji appears to be making very few cameras, blaming the now comical excuse "muh shortages", and for those very few cameras there is demand - thus they're perpetually out of stock.

If someone wants to get into the Fuji system for the standard reasons that made Fuji popular in the first place (compact, build quality, user experience) there's simply no reason to get new gear when the old gear is just as good and WAS readily available at deep discounts. Contrast this with brands like Sony and Canon, in which new gear greatly outperforms old gear both in functionality AND image quality - that leads to much lower demand and lower prices on old gear.

I disagree with your assertion that the old gear is 'just as good.'  My X-H1 was light years ahead of the old X-E1 that it replaced.  And though I <3 my X-H1s and their dial controls, I've shot the X-H2 and the images are a little better, but what's miles ahead is the autofocus and speed.  The H1's no slouch, but the new H2 does kinda blow it away when you need to shoot fast moving things like BIF or sports.

My local camera store has enough new Fuji in stock enough of the time that I can buy the supply chain shortage argument.  I mean, I couldn't buy new bicycle tires from my regular vendor for two calendar years.  I still can't buy 8 or 9 speed cassettes since mid 2020.  In itself this has nothing to do with cameras, but it illustrates the problem-if the factories are having difficulty in making and shipping commodity items, they're probably having trouble making and shipping more exotic, tech intensive items as well.