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Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

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Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#101

Post by tombert »

YZF wrote: post #95
tombert wrote: post #68

Wait, Kodak is still around? I'm not trying to be a dick or shitpost, but I genuinely thought they collapsed after I heard nothing about KodakCoin after the initial announcement.

They went bankrupt in 2012 but came out of their banruptcy. This is the second time they're collapsing. Not really related to their coin I don't think.

Yeah, I just assumed that the coin was a last-ditch effort to cash in on a trend, and I guess I assumed that when that thing failed, so did the company.

I haven't touched a film camera in more than twenty years, so for most of my life I have only been aware of Kodak peripherally, so it's not like I was paying a lot of attention to them.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#102

Post by giantrobot »

alephnerd wrote: post #62
glimshe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many tech companies still deal with physical goods and employ enough people to fill a city - but no longer in the US and Europe, generally. Whether we want them back is up to us.

Ever been to Folsom, Chandler, Olathe, Huntsville, Quad Cities, Peoria, Irvine, San Diego, North Chicago, East Liberty, Taylor, etc? We have seen a decrease in companies that work on physical engineering goods, but plenty still remain. The difference is, engineering physical goods has been increasingly automated and skilled for decades now (robotic manufacturing, additive manufacturing, CAD tooling, etc has been a th…

> I don't like the fact that stores like Fry's don't exist anymore, but electronics is a much more niche hobby now than it was 30/40/50 years ago and is much less hobbyist friendly - building something with an 8088 might be fun, but not as much anymore when you can purchase a STM32 for a fraction of what they 8088 was 30 years ago. Coding has becoming a very prevalent hobby now, and access to hobbyist boards like Arduinos and Raspberry Pis has become much more democratized.

I don't think it's so much that electronics is more niche of a hobby but instead of going to Frys or Radio Shack people can click a button and order from Amazon or the Arduino store or anywhere else. There's no hoping a shop has a part you need. You just pick it and are done.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#103

Post by martinpw »

Back in the day when photographic plates were used to capture images from astronomical telescopes, occasionally the excitement of a new discovery was followed by the disappointment of realizing that it was just a blemish in the emulsion, also known as an "Eastman Kodak Object".

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#104

Post by cowsandmilk »

xenotux wrote: post #66

Not many people remember, but it wasn't that long ago that Kodak was "pivoting to crypto": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin At that point, it was pretty clear that they're on borrowed time. I'm surprised they had enough runway / credit to make it to 2025.

I would hardly describe a brand licensing agreement as a pivot of the company.

A true pivot of Kodak was moving from just doing chemicals for film to doing chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry. That actually involved employees changing what they do, changing factory equipment, etc.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#105

Post by drakenot »

> Presteign did not care for the artists, musicians, and fops Olivia kept about her, but he was pleased to see a scattering of society notables this morning.

> There was a Sears-Roebuck, a Gillet, young Sidney Kodak who would one day be Kodak of Kodak, a Houbigant, Buick of Buick, and R. H. Macy XVI, head of the powerful Saks-Gimbel clan.

- The Stars My Destination

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#106

Post by rubidium »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #104
xenotux wrote: post #66

Not many people remember, but it wasn't that long ago that Kodak was "pivoting to crypto": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin At that point, it was pretty clear that they're on borrowed time. I'm surprised they had enough runway / credit to make it to 2025.

I would hardly describe a brand licensing agreement as a pivot of the company. A true pivot of Kodak was moving from just doing chemicals for film to doing chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry. That actually involved employees changing what they do, changing factory equipment, etc.

Fujifilm succeeded at it (before Kodak tried). Interesting case study between the two companies.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#107

Post by SamBam »

siva7 wrote: post #38
LorenPechtel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. It's not a small office worth of staff. You're not counting all the jobs involved in providing the data centers.

Those aren't employees of instagram or whatsapp

But they're part of its stack. It wouldn't exist without it. And vice versa, AWS wouldn't have as many employees without companies like Instagram.

Kodak required so many because it owned nearly the whole stack.

But that said, we can't just add the number of AWS employees to the number of Instagram employees, because we have to prorate it by the total number of companies that use AWS (or whatever).

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#108

Post by lr4444lr »

joegibbs wrote: post #100
squigz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't deny wealth disparity is very much a thing, but this doesn't seem the point to make it. How many people does Google employ? Amazon? Apple? Probably as much or more than a small town.

Amazon has 1.5m, it's more on the level of a small country. Google is only at 180k, just small city level.

You're counting warehouse and delivery workers though in that number, which IIRC is the significant majority. Google doesn't move physical products. (At least, not anything near that scale.)

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#109

Post by SamBam »

tomr75 wrote: post #69
specproc wrote: post #15

Interesting to compare the tech companies of last century with those of this era. Kodak employed a whole town, and many more people besides. We're now waiting on a one-person unicorn. The number of people benefiting from an enterprise has shrunk considerably, with the benefits accruing more tightly within an already wealthy class.

flip-side is one person can add a billion dollars of value

Does that billion dollars actually provide a living wage for over 100,000 people for years on end? Because companies like Kodak did.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#110

Post by BLKNSLVR »

xenotux wrote: post #66

Not many people remember, but it wasn't that long ago that Kodak was "pivoting to crypto": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin At that point, it was pretty clear that they're on borrowed time. I'm surprised they had enough runway / credit to make it to 2025.

Given that bitcoin just hit another all time high, I'm not sure how apt your analysis is.

Having said that, more of the cryptocurrency industry is scams than not - but then that also wouldn't necessarily exclude them from profitability...

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