Couple things;
Most folks that I know who aren't photography forum pixel peepers do not care about FF vs APSC. They only care about the photo.
One of my housemates is a pro photographer/lighting guy. He works with big name clients every week doing fashion, product and feature photography. He does this for a living and I am just a hobbyist. But when I have brought up nerdy photography topics such as this, he laughs. Him and his circle of photo production friends are more concerned with getting the lighting to work and dealing with #^%! demanding clients. Pretty much all cameras are good enough.
I'd also point out that the image quality difference between FF and APSC is not as great as it once was.
Really the main advantage of FF for most non-pro users, is that you can get that hip shallow depth of field look. Which is really great if you know what you are doing. If you don't, then you end up with half of someones face blurred. For a lot of folks the APSC, and it's not quite so shallow DOF, is more forgiving.
Is that the only reason to use FF? Of course not. But when I put my Fuji APSC photos next to my Canon FF photos I am not thinking that I am missing anything in terms of image quality, DR or color. I do think that the different cameras somehow have me taking different types of photos due to the divergent approaches of camera operation.
So true - if you can shoot in good light (natural or man-made) it doesn't really matter what you shoot with. A cell phone will give you amazing images if you have the right light in your exposure.
From a marketing perspective: Fujifilm has a big hole in the middle of the price range. Their APS-C range has a hard time transitioning users from their APS-C price range to their MF range.
But I am sure someone at Fuji has heard of Moore's law. The price of MF will come down where as the price APS-C is pretty close to being where it will be. Fuji seems to be in for the long run. If I were in my 30's today and doing what I was doing when I was 30 only with today's technology, I would have a GFX in a nanosecond. APS-C is gnawing away at FF from the bottom and MF prices will come down. Many a technologies have been caught in that squeeze. Take the former large computer company - Digital Equipment Corporation. The stakes out a market in "mini-computers." They were big enough to do a lot of things but inexpensive enough for every company to have them. They made a killing, then all of sudden as Moore's law kicked in - the PC platforms were gnawing away from below and what that once were considered super computers getting cheaper and cheaper.
DEC was going tits up and was bought by a PC company (Compaq Computer who was bought by AP). There are no DEC computers around today except in museums. Electronics is strange like that. FF today is a sweet spot but that sweet spot is going to change and APS-C closes the technical and IQ gap and medium format closes the cost gap.
Why would the technical gap close? All it needs to do is reach a point of sufficiency, which I would argue happened back in 2012. There has been relatively little real world IQ improvement since then, other than with phone sensors.
All the new tech is about faster readout, more AF points, etc. IQ is nearly stagnant.
As for the cost gap, unit sensor cost is a function of batch size as well as yield, not sensor tech. The reason why microprocessors get cheaper with smaller die sizes is because they get smaller. More chips per wafer, higher yield.
The same economy of scale principle does not apply to camera sensors.
BSI is far more expensive than FSI, but a large enough batch makes them economic. If Nikon order 20,000 D850 sensors, they will be a lot cheaper than if they order 1,000.
GFX sensor prices will come down when and if the market picks up and more people buy them. As it stands, the price ratio vs. FF is pretty high.
There is a lot of activity in the image sensor world just commercial image sensors for cameras. Between security cameras, medical imaging, etc. there is a lot of work going on. processes improve over time as to manufacturing.
The semi-conductor industry has always benefited by primarily military applications pouring lots of money in to develop the base technology. The US space program of the 1960's was a huge shot in the arm that led to rapid development to the semi-conduction industry.
Fairchild Camera and Instrument put the first digital camera in an military strategic airborne reconnaissance aircraft so real time imagery could be forwarded back in the early mid 1970's. Fairchild Camera and Instrument division Fairchild semiconductor delivered the first digital camera sensor for space applications in the mid 1970's. NASA launched digital imagery sensors - actually hyper spectral sensors in the early 1980's. Where those sensors expensive -you bet your bippy. Did those developments quick start a technology that eventually aided the commercial world. They sure did.
Because of the importance of imagery today to multiple agencies, from NASA to the military the US and other countries (European space agency, China, Japan, etc.) are plowing money into the advances of sensor technology. DARPA has developed a 1.8 GP sensor that can spot and identify a person from 20,000 feet. That system came out of BAE out of its Fairchild Imaging division. The sensor comes from stitching 5 MP sensors together into a large aperture.
At some point just as the cameras flown in the mid 1970's made their impact on the commercial market - 10 to 20 years later - so will the current sensor technology that is being developed. There are a lot of drivers out there other than order size of Nikon.
When NSA could not find a fab that could produce the chips it wanted they built their own fab. Part was technology reasons, part because of the small runs of unique custom designed chips and part was security reasons.
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/a...new-business-for-in-house-cmos-wafer-fab.html
It was opened in the early 1980's and was sold to National Semiconductor in the early 2000's because the need had been overcome by events.
Was this an expensive proposition - yep. Was it necessary - yep. Did it push forward the technology that helped propel the commercial market - yep.
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