Originally posted by monochrome
I just don't use the cameras for photographs. I don't have a Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Vines or Twitter account at all.
I have none of those accounts either. but many do and sharing is a huge part of what drives photography sales.
The darkroom was replaced by the PC as the digital darkroom, but now for vernacular use the mobile OS platforms are replacing the desktop OS's in a major way. Penatx/Ricoh primarily make vernacular cameras.
Any camera system that does not speak naturally, organically, and swiftly with mobile OS's without some intermediary is a dead in the water sales jug.
Look at Nikon's 1 series. An oddball system but now the latest J4 has built in wi-fi. This after Nikon apparently spent a fortune creating and marketing separate hardware wi-fi modules for their cameras as an after-market, high-margin accessory.
In the internet of things your camera system MUST be a thing or the whole system withers. Not only has the P&S market been eviscerated by the cameraphones by Apple Samsung, LG, HTC, etc. (note, almost no Japanese company left in the mix) their optical photography companies increasingly look like dinosaurs.
The path is now simple: optics-sensor-processor-wi-fi-mobile or dekstop device.