Will we every again have the joy of investing in high-end gear ?

It’s been said before by others but I’m saying it again “There are too many new cameras and lenses being introduced often, standards are becoming fragmented - the joy of investing in high end gear has eroded significantly“ - I’d like to know what you think about where this status of things is heading over the next decade ?

When I was a kid it was all film based. I had a number of lower cost cameras and one or two decent lenses as well as some rubbish. I got to appreciate the benefits of good kit and could look forward to the future when I might upgrade. Now I can afford a nice camera. If film were still king then I’d have myself a Contax SLR with Zeiss glass, perhaps also a Leica rangefinder and a Rollei TLR. The investment in top quality gear would last me the rest of my life. I’d get so familiar wth the gear that it would become part of me and I’d know how to use instinctively. I’m not a pro so I don’t use my gear so often that this familiarity comes quickly. I’d not fear about the longevity of the kit, Leica will always be around to repair it and it’ll be built to the highest standards to begin with. I might try different film types and different papers for printing so there’s always something new I can explore without changing my gear.

Today there’s simply no way I would feel happy spending Leica money on a modern digital camera. They have no longevity. I’m not talking about reliability, although truth is most of the semiconductors inside it will be obsoleted after a few years, even if somebody actually knew how to repair it at all. And if it broke and I had to replace it, chances are the current model will have a different user interface, different image quality - I’d have to start-over to ‘get one with’ the new kit. How many of the current lens systems will still be available in 10 years ? There are evolving standards, manufacturers don’t all agree on the RAW file format they use for example.

Perhaps the answer is this. Instead of buying film and processing each month, I put the same amount of money into a tin under the mattress and this gets used to justify the depreciation of the modern camera.