LaForet: Dedicated Cameras are Coming to an End for all but PROS

[dolina]

I am sharing this on every photo forum I am a member of as we are either working or hobbyist photographer who have probably bought a mirrorless/SLR camera. I find it a fun topic to talk about, assuming you aren't selling these still cameras.

Vincent LaForet was the first to promote the coming of HD video onto SLRs making his thoughts on the ongoing decline of still cameras have weight.

Without further adieu read this blog post below.

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2015/02/24/prediction-the-age-of-the-standalone-still-camera-is-coming-to-and-end-for-all-but-pros/

Note to Vincent: Get someone to proof read for you. ;)

This video below expounds LaForet's thoughts with some rounded numbers

http://youtu.be/bfCJDIf-NeA

Here are some more precise numbers to supplement the blog and video.

http://lensvid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Infographic-1920-1200-ver-2-0.jpg

Source: http://lensvid.com/gear/lensvid-exclusive-what-happened-to-the-photography-industry-in-2013/

Production, Shipment of Digital Still Cameras in 2014 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-2014_e.pdf)

42.8 million - still cameras covering point & shoots, mirrorless and SLRs
- 29.28 million point & shoots
- 3.17 million mirrorless
- 10.32 million SLRs

Production, Shipment of Digital Still Cameras in 2013 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-2013_e.pdf)

61.0 million - still cameras covering point & shoots, mirrorless and SLRs
- 44.19 million point & shoots
- 3.18 million mirrorless
- 13.64 million SLRs

Production, Shipment of Interchangeable Lenses in 2014 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/s-2014_e.pdf)

22.3 million lenses covering crop & full frame
- 5.7 million full frame lenses
- 16.6 million crop lenses

Production, Shipment of Interchangeable Lenses in 2013 (http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/s-2013_e.pdf)

25.88 million22.3 million lenses covering crop & full frame
- 6.01 million full frame lenses
- 19.87 million crop lenses

vs

1.3 billion smartphones shipped in 2014 (http://www.techinasia.com/idc-smartphones-shipped-2014-apple-samsung-xiaomi/)

Of which 1 billion are Android and 193 million are iPhones (http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/29/android-breaks-1b-mark-for-2014-81-of-the-1-3b-smartphones-shipped-in-total/)

Makes me wish I used all the money I spent on Canon & Apple gear went into Apple stock at $7.00/share in 2002.

What makes the smartphone market so big is that a sizeable chunk of smartphone users are on contract so they get upgraded phones every 12, 24 or 36 months. These upgrades are "pushed" on them rather than us working/hobbyist photographers "pulling" these upgrades with our still cameras.

I also think just like the PC shipping figures still cameras are either abandoned in favor of smartphones/tablets or upgraded based on need (the subject they're photographing needs XYZ feature or the camera broken down and isn't worth repairing).

Less than 1% of those buying a still camera of any sort buys a SLR. The 1% of the 1% of SLR buyers buys a double grip pro body like a Canon 1D X or Nikon D4S.

It puts into perspective where/who we are today. Doesn't it?

With this in mind do you find yourself thinking perhaps the next upgrade you will skip all together?

[Analog6]

What upgrade? I still use my 1DsMkII - there's nothing wrong with it and it produces wonderful work so why should I trade it in. I've never used the movie function on any of my DSLRs that have it and doubt I ever will. The only reason I sold my 40D and went to 60D was to utilise LiveView for aurora shooting and I can't get it to work anyway! Personally, I wouldn't give 2 bob for upgrades.

[ricktas]

Now you have posted that, let's hope you find some time to give some CC to other AP members. Your last comment on a photo by another member was in July last year, yet you have posted heaps of your own threads since then.

And the market for phone cameras etc outstripping larger cameras has been discussed on this site in the past. old news. Sony put a camera in a mobile phone for the first time in the year 2000. The big assumption in all this is that photographers will stop using DSLR etc cause they have a phone. The reality is that most of us have had a phone with a camera for years, yet we still own, use, upgrade our DSLR's etc. Newsflash: One is not a replacement for the other, we can own both! Looking at the downturn in sales you also need to consider the global economy. People will not buy what they cannot afford, and the last few years have been very tough on a lot of economies, and people are wary of spending in such an environment. Sales quantities of anything cannot be taken in an isolated way and then manipulation of those figures to justify a reason.

After all I could publish an article saying raspberries are no longer being eaten by Australians, and that the raspberry growers need to look at other income streams. Cause Australians no longer enjoy raspberries, they are seen as old-fashioned in a market where other fruit are being promoted as the in-fruit to eat. Without considering the reasons behind the reduction in sales, and making up my own reasons, does not make my points correct. ALL factors need to be considered.

In my opinion, the links above are his was of justifying his point of view, nothing more. Phone sales have exceeded camera sales for more than a decade now, but cameras are still being sold every day.

And I am with Odille, I upgrade when I want to, not when the next new model comes out...that is the domain of the Apple Isheeple.

[Kym]

Physics!
Simply, the size of the objective (i.e. the area of the front of your lens) and the size of the sensor dictate how many photons can be collected for an image.
In this case more is very much about better.

[arthurking83]

I'm sorry, but if you believe this statement ....


This is bold prediction, but it’s clear to me that over the next several years, the standalone still camera will disappear from the hands of everyone – with the exception of a few high end professionals.


then you may as well use the services of a witch-doctor or astrologer to help with any potential investments in stock markets too!

In a word .. BS!

stand alone stills cameras have been a popular commodity since basically the day they were invented .. about 100 years ago .. and will continue to be desired so for a long time yet to come.

I'm not sure exactly which drug ... err ... crystal ball .... errr ... sales graph this guy is smoking .. gazing into .. watching .. but by my reckoning, currently 10 million(DSLR) + 3 million(mirrorless) at a minimum of $500 and probably averaged out to more like $700 per unit .. is still a significant level of product to continue on with!

At those rates, that makes the DSLR + mirrorless markets still worth a significant $5billion to $7billion market.

And what, the camera companies are just going to stop catering to it? :confused013

In the next few years, supposes approximately less than 10 years. In camera terms this is going from Jurassic era to the Jetsons!

Maybe had he said next several decades .. it'd be slightly more believable in some way .. but again, only in that the dedicated stills camera may also do other stuff .. even beyond just stills and video..

maybe it may have the ability to cook the food that many folks like to take snaps of and upload to twitter or facebook!

IN all seriousness tho, there will always be a market for those out there that may want to take photography a bit more seriously.

No doubt that smartphones will have a capability equal to what current DSLRs/mirrorless cameras can achieve, but this will be so distant into a possible future that the midn boggles as to what proper cameras of that era will be capable of.

I think this Laforet chap thinks a bit too highly of his ability as a crystal ball gazer ..
He assumes that this current trend for social media is a given into the future.
He also supposes that we ALL want to use these resources immediately.

I know of many that don't, and I can easily think of scenarios where the current trend in social media may fail and fall by the wayside into the near future!

And what of the ability for a proper camera to have the ability to upload instantly to social media anyhow .. I know of many that already do.

From personal experience, while I like the idea of better tech in my stuff, I'm also not a habitual updater .. ie, just for the sake of updating.

I'm on a so called phone plan(contract plan), and I could have easily upgraded my current phone to a new gen version.
But why? my current phone is more than enough. If it dies, of course I'll put pressure on my carrier to give the latest and greatest(up to a point) replacement.

I recently got my youngest a new phone on a plan. At the same time, I updated my son's phone to a new one.
He personally preferred the smaller size of the old phone, and it was adequate enough for him, but that phone is no longer available, and I told him that to fix the broken screen on his phone woudl take me a while .. so he played with the next gen phone and he wa OK with it, so we updated it for him.
All this was a convenience thing .. not a necessity thing.
Convenience tho, in that it all happened when we could all be bothered to go to a store to do it all.
He put up with a massively cracked screen on his phone for about 2-3 months(It'd have driven me crazy) .. and his major use of the phone is for playing some game he does 25 hours per day.

I'm slowly seeing this in a few kids of his age group/generation .. this is the generation after Y gen.
(apologies to Y gen) .. but on the whole, they seem to be quite idiottic .. and having the latest and greatest appears to be their prime directive .. as if somehow an entire generation's DNA code base somehow mutated into believing this to be the answer to life and the universe! Everyone before Gen-Y firmly believed this answer to be 42 .. and that was that.

But many of the kids I now have dealing with in some way .. all seemed to start off needing the latest and greatest .. they went form DS's to DSi's to DSi extra large, to DSi-3D .. or whatever they're now called. Same with iPods .. they went from iPod 1's to iPod 2's .. etc, all the way to iPod 6's.
But this seemed to have stopped.
I know of kids that have all this stuff .. and more tablets, other gaming consoles .. etc, and the need to update to the latest incarnation seems to have subsided.

Give them a board game and see how quickly they abandon their DS/ipod/tablets now.

The strange trend is to go back to the past .. retro everything.

Again, from personal experience.
A few years ago I also had the revelation that software is of vital importance to the overall experience of photography.
My revelation was slightly similar to what Laforet describes in his blog, but not from smarphones. I've now had a smartphone since about 2009 only .. once my PDA died.
My revelation in how a camera with great software can go so well together came from a dinky little toy camera in the Samsung Galaxy Camera.
That is, a proper camera(to a point!) plus software .. I could never handle the way a smartphone operates as a camera .. in short .. crap!
Galaxy Camera tho .. awesome little device for fun factor. For serious factor tho .. it'd have been binned a few hours after initial useage!

What I'd like to see is a proper camera still ... always. But with a dual boot OS/firmware.
Almost like the Canon/Magic Lantern environment, but with Android as the alternative OS to play with. That is, instead of ML .. Android would have been a perfect alternate system to work in.
Of course I'd prefer to see this system in a Nikon camera.

My reaction to having video in stills cameras was .. :th3: .. couldn't wait to get one myself.
Had a plan to do a video, but that fell through, but that isn't the point. Having the option to do it was!
Many people thought it was a waste .. silly people that they were .. they did have the option to ignore video capability and simply use the stills capability.

Same deal will happen with a smart OS on your stills camera. It wont be to everyone's taste, but once they've got used to it .. they will also change.
As long as it's quick. Android isn't quick enough as an OS for operation on a speedy DSLR type camera. So, dual booting is the best way forward.

communication isn't such a necessary component .. that is, the camera doesn't need a sim slot to allow it connection to the world, you can still tether it to a connected device if this is an urgent requirement. or a small sim module could be made as an accessory for these cameras .. or tethered to a wireless dongle or whatever.
The Galaxy Camera has a sim slot, can even make phone calls if needed via IP phone services(not natively). In the two years we've had it .. we've never used it as such other than one initial test to see it operate.

Again, apologies if my post sounds like an attack on Laforet, but his comment that ..


The battle is over… the smartphones and iOSs have won.


but then ho goes on to say ...



The quality is good enough on a smartphone/iPhone today, that when combined with software the need for a dedicated still camera can appear to be a burden to the majority of people out there: unless they have a specific technical need that only a DSLR or speciality lenses can offer.

In all seriousness the guy seems to be an idiot!

He's just described the exact reason why still cameras is something that a lot of folks have always aspired too own!
I'm getting the feeling this chap has been drinking from the same fountain of stupidity that Ken Rockwell used too. Maybe he is KR come back to haunt us .. all bloody over again! :rolleyes:

So on one hand he predicts that still cameras are something that people don't want to own any more .. yet on the other hand he's just described a reason to own these cameras that they don't want to own any more ..

He definitely needs to find someone to proof read his writing so as to make more sense.

Phones are great, can do some really good stuff, but as we all know .. and don't need Laforet to tell us .. they are very limited in what they can do.
Is he really serious in thinking that no one .. anywhere in the world, other than pro photographers will ever find a need to do something a bit more technical with their camera.
is he serious in saying that photography as a hobby is dead .. and all that everyone wants is to post inane images of the same old thing .. selfies and food .. to some social media site.

- - - Updated - - -

Camera makers are having a hard time .. we all know this(if you follow the news on it all).
Camera sales have slowed to very low levels, and updaters are not as updatey as they once were.
previously 6Mp camera owners wanted the upgrade to 12Mp as it was a hefty jump.

The jump from 12Mp to 26Mp was even more huge(huger? :D)

But the jump wasn't just about the number of pixels .. it came with other improvements too .. focus frame rates, more solid, better noise . whatever.

If the manufacturers can do better software, and the general mass of updaters realise the advantage it can offer .. updaters will start the updatey ... ring around the rosey cycle all over again.

Software is where these idiot camera manufacturers will make money.
Until they realise this point .. they have no hope to make money in a saturated market.

[Tannin]

Just to pick up on one particular point here, Dolina points out that camera sales are trending strongly down and that 1.3 billion smart phones shipped last year. Quite so. Note also that computer shipments have roughly halved over the last five years or so, with the rise of smart phones and tablets generally regarded as the main reason. (The slow-motion trainwreck that was Windows 8 had a part to play too, but ignore that, tablets were the biggie.)

In reality - though the paid industry pundits (mobs like IDC) don't generally recognise this - there is another very important reason for the collapse in computer sales: simply, that a five-year-old computer is often perfectly sufficient for the uses it gets and people are hanging on to them for longer. The raw power of even a five-year-old computer is huge, most of us simply don't need more than we already have. Not only that, the pace of improvement has slowed to a crawl in that same timespan. Key computer components like hard drives and CPUs have hit the wall; they have reached the limits imposed by the laws of physics and there aren't any easy-yard improvements to be had. Starting five or ten years ago, improvement became difficult, slow, and expensive. Result: the computer market has crashed and the manufacturers aren't making a cracker.

Now, cross out the word "computer" in the text above and replace it with the word "camera". What I wrote is just as true. Computers and cameras both have crashed in the market, and phones and tablets get the blame. Some (not all) of that blame is justified.

Now let's get to the point. The phone and tablet market is also crashing. It's only just started in the last 18 months or so, but the trend is unmistakable. Innovation has slowed right down (it's getting seriously hard to improve them much); the rate of increase in shipment numbers is slowing dramatically and nearly all that increase in coming in third-world markets through cheap, low-end models; and margins have become very, very tight - so much so that several major phone & tablet makers have simply folded their tents and gone out of the business.

The lucrative high-end phones are hardest hit of all. Release cycles are slowing and the new ones that do arrive are (a) not really very different, and (b) no-one cares much anyway.

What's happening here is that (a) fewer and fewer people outside the third-world are buying their first smart phone or tablet - most who want one already have one - and (b) people are hanging on to the ones they already have and not upgrading. Even the reliable old standby for phone sales, "free" contract phones are going out of fashion. Consumers are more and more likely now to contract-shop and provide their own phone.

What does this mean for the camera market? Feel free to draw your own conclusions. But you can get a very good hint at the way it might go by looking at what has happened with the computer market (which started to crash a couple of years before the camera market did). This last year has seen the decline in computer sales halt, and seen a modest but clear recovery. People are finally buying new computers again (both desktop and laptop). No-one really expects that the computer market will ever go back to the massive sales numbers of the glory days, but the shakeout is over and sales seem to have steadied at a new, more sensible level. I see no reason why cameras will be different. It started crashing later and probably won't steady for another year or two, but steady it will.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6wok7g7do

[dolina]

Actual shipments in 2014
Forecasted shipments for 2015

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7610/16573061874_fbbcef8d4e_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/rfvgU7)
CIPA2015Forecast (https://flic.kr/p/rfvgU7) by alabang (https://www.flickr.com/people/91429492@N00/), on Flickr

Point & shoots is the most affected in drop in sales.

Interchangeable lenses and bodies the least affected.

People on photo forums will still buy dedicated still cameras.

People who dont will probably use what they have until it is too expensive to fix or just get a new smartphone.

[MissionMan]

I don't think this is a surprise at all. I have a P&S, I don't use it anymore, I either use my phone or my DSRL. Most of the people I know started doing this years ago

[arthurking83]

One thing is still for certain:

People will always still want(or need) a good quality camera at some point in their lifetime.
People associate a good quality camera as a large-ish box that allows the connection of a separate lens.
While they know that their phones can take good shots, they still feel that a proper camera is something they need at some point in their lives.

Strange thing is, that many of these people don't understand what good quality camera gear actually is.
Not that there is anything really wrong with entry level cameras with kit lenses attached, but in many conditions their phone cameras can achieve almost as good images.

But that is what they got and that's how they think. For those occasions where they want good quality images they bring the dedicated camera. For all other snap moments they use what's available .. which is usually the phone.

Today I was at a family event. I reckon about 70-100 people. Many of these people brought their 'good cameras' I had a quick chat to one about his new A6000 + kit lens ... it looked like an 18-50 of some kind ... very small lens, still too large for the camera body.
We briefly spoke about the camera, but mainly about a bit of footy and other stuff, while I tentatively handled the A6000. Camera felt 'wrong' to me. Lens too big for a camera body I couldn't hold on too.
That was really my only comment to this bloke about the camera. He knows I'm into photography and asked why I didn't have mine at the party. (basically couldn't be bothered, and wanted to be a part of the party for the sake of the party, not to capture any images today).
But I saw not one P&S of any kind. Most had DSLRs with kit lenses, a couple of bridge cameras and a few of those Sony NEX type and the one a6000, which is basically an NEX too.
At the church a few brought out their phones for quick snaps, but again mostly entry level DSLRs.

I just think we're at point in the camera world where everyone seems to have what they think they need. I doubt they need any more than what they have.
if their cameras fail in a major way in the future, they will most likely replace it with the current generation of what they already have. This decision will most likely be based on price. So if they have a D3200/600D now, then in the future when a camera is needed to replace the current one, it will be of a similar level/brand .. ie. a D3500/800D(or whatever model is out).

I didn't see any Fujis or Olympuses today. I didn't do a count, but I'd say at least 20 .. maybe 30 cameras, mainly Nikon D3xxx/5xxx and Canons of similar model levels, as well as those few Sonys. No Sony a7s, or other mirrorless camera that I can't think of now.

I reckon that the smart-phone-camera market will go the same way.(if it hasn't already). People already have a fully capable device now(or most do, anyhow).
If I can get a much better model replacement from my carrier, I'll take it. But if they only offer me a slight upgrade, I won't(or don't) bother.
What I currently have is enough. It does what I need, can store what I need it too, etc, etc. I have no need to upgrade it. I have no desire too either. On the whole, there is no real benefit, and usually a tedious process.
At some point in the future a lot of other people will also see the futility of it all too.

So, if my prediction of the smartphonecamera market pans out as I think it will, are these same experts going to come out and declare that this is the end for photography too?

If dedicated cameras sales drop to a few percent of what they once were, and phone cameras sales also start decline at a steady rate .. is this going to be the end of photography as we know it?
of course not.
Just as they did in the past, people purchased one camera that lasted a lifetime, history repeats and people purchased a digital camera that should last them a new (albeit possibly shorter) lifetime.
For a short time in the early 2000's, digital P&S cameras became extremely affordable. Prices dropped quicker than at any point in time previously.
And it should be remembered that P&S cameras came in film flavour too .. P&S isn't a digital era phenomenon!!

But prices and ease of use and instant gratification all combined to create an immense surge in demand for them.
It must be remembered at what level (of sales) that saw the dawn of the new millennium.
Some folks look at camera sales of 60 million units(combined) plunging down to 40 million units in the next year and see disaster and the end of photography as we know it .. but don't stop to absorb the fact that barely 5 million units sold in 1999(most of which would have been film back then).
Of course (even with the benefit of hindsight) .. that you make a product cheaper, quicker, easier and simpler and it's going to go gang busters in the sales charts.
But once the market is flooded, the hysteria dies down and the market matures .. it's inevitable that the real base sales figures is not going to be anywhere near what the hysterical peak sales figures once were.

So if the camera market settles down to about 8-10million units in total in a few years time .. it's not to be unexpected.
But this silliness to declare that dedicated cameras are coming to an end for all but pros is just stupidity.

This is why I believe that the smartphone market will end up in the same situation as the camera market endured over the past couple of years.

If they currently shift 1 billion units per year, then don't be surprised if that market crumbles to only 100 million units per year 4 or 5 years later.

[I @ M]

I reckon it is lucky that there are a few of us who aren't detrred by the internet scaremongerers and buy a variety of gear to suit different occassions ------

[Steve Axford]

The raw power of even a five-year-old computer is huge, most of us simply don't need more than we already have. Not only that, the pace of improvement has slowed to a crawl in that same timespan. Key computer components like hard drives and CPUs have hit the wall; they have reached the limits imposed by the laws of physics and there aren't any easy-yard improvements to be had. Starting five or ten years ago, improvement became difficult, slow, and expensive. Result: the computer market has crashed and the manufacturers aren't making a cracker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6wok7g7do
I read this with some surprise as I had not heard anything of the sort. Now, I have been out of the computer industry for 7 or 8 years now, but I did once design high end systems and I have a passing familiarity with the relevant laws of physics. The reason that the increase in clock speeds have slowed is not so much that they can't go faster, but because there is more to be gained by multiprocessing. The big advantage in this approach is that it cuts power consumption. Has anyone noticed that computer power (not single chip power) has stalled? Or that disk sizes have stalled? Or that anything else in this field has stalled? I don't buy computers every year, but I do buy disks on a regular basis and it is very apparent that prices per TB are still dropping at a high rate.
I bought my first home computer mainly so I could use email. Clearly I wouldn't need to do that now. Perhaps this type of thing is more the reason for contraction in computer sales, than hitting any technology wall. Anyway, it depends what you define as a computer.
I suspect camera sales are similar. In his note Arthur assumes that the market will comprise the same people going into the future. This is clearly wrong as new generations will start fuelling the market. We do not know what they will be interested in, or what creative people will be offering. About the only thing that is certain is that things will change. But, I strongly suspect that people will still want to take pictures and some will want to take high quality pictures, so there will always be good cameras that you can buy.

[swifty]

If smartphones are able to decimate any dedicated camera segment whether P&S or other, it is because their quality/usage has improved so immensely that the user chooses not to own a dedicated x camera. I can't see how this is a bad thing. It is the smartphone's ability that has improved and I'm all for improvements.

But like Kym, I think the physics of it will mean smartphones will also hit a wall. Beyond which it would be difficult to overcome the size deficiency.

[Nick Cliff]

I feel like others there was an obvious shift from film to digital having plateaued out now and the point and shoot market is being replaced by phones now.So now digital cameras I feel will hold an appeal for more hands on style photography and retro lenses with mirrorless systems and will always hold a certain segment of the market.
I have wondered like others if part of the camera sales problems have been their engineers and marketing men promising a better model every year or so, with many people now holding off on their upgrades. Hopefully sanity prevails and this technological race slows as many people may be trying to avoid buying what they perceive to be a technological dinosaur.

I do recall camera reviewers saying that they could not conceive the average photographer needing more than 10 megapixels, so it would be a brave man who would try and predict when enough is enough apparently.

I wonder if camera manufacturing quality is beginning to suffer now with the world economy slowing post GFC, perhaps we may reminisce about cameras that lasted five to ten years in the future.

I have noticed lately that good quality lenses from the film era are selling in hours not a week or so, and I am wondering if a new trend in camera usage is evolving.
Cameras are not dead, they are evolving instead.

[fess67]

I think a case of video killed the radio star - I think the change from SLR to mirror less will be the biggest impact but the format will still be a dedicated camera as opposed to a cameraphone.

[MissionMan]

I agree. There are two changes coming into play. The mobile market is killing the P&S market and the mirrorless market is taking a portion of the DSLR market, largely impact the consumer rather than prosumer DSLR markets.

I've just shifted my stepfather from a DSLR to a Olympus OM-D M10 because it's pretty much as much as he will need. He has a DSLR which is an overkill for his current requirements and after dropping his DSLR and it being to old to economically repair, I helped him buy an OM-D with a 14-42 and 40-150 lens which is more than enough for his requirements and a fraction of the size.

[Mathy]

........

And I am with Odille, I upgrade when I want to, not when the next new model comes out...that is the domain of the Apple Isheeple.
OY! Enough of the 'iSheeple', I'm an Apple user and I only recently upgraded to a 5s from a 4s, I'm way behind the times :)

I guess that Smartphones are the Instamatics of the modern world, but there will be people who want to use a dSLR or mirrorless for the added functionality.

After all, when the Instamatic was flourishing, what inspired people to buy a 35mm SLR with interchangeable lenses? Possibly seeing great images, photojournalism, National Geographic, wildlife, landscapes, travel??? I don't feel that this aspect of photography would have changed too much.

However, price is a major barrier, partly molified by the ASPC sensor range and mirrorless, although both these types could hardly be described as inexpensive.

As a mirrorless owner, I do frequent other forums where my camera is discussed more frequently than here. The majority of people wanting to use a Nikon 1 (of some sort) are either upgrading from some sort of Point and Shoot/Zoom, or own a FF dSLR and want something lighter to travel, hike or bike with that will give them reasonable quality images. The FF users are well aware of the limitations that the camera has, but are able to work within them. I can pack my entire kit - body, 10mm, 10-30mm, 30-110mm and 70-300mm, filters and charger into a LowePro Fastpack 100 - which is a small unit and it all weighs less than 2.5kg. That's a big advantage for older people, or those who are travelling.

I'm in the camp of Viva La Difference!

[Dug]

The people who had point and shot cameras (either in the film days or the digital age) bought them because they needed something to record key moments in their life, not because they aspired to be photographers.
The P+S was the least outlay and the smallest investment in effort to operate a camera.
Along come the mobile phone with a camera in it and no big surprise the P+S is taking a mayor hit in sales, then the doom sayers start spouting that it is the end of photography as we know it.

The mobile phone with its camera has fueled the social media revolution with copious images. I credit the smart phone with making taking pictures never more popular, the people who had P&S cameras where not in the habit of taking them with them anyway unless it was some special occasion.
I consider cameras for picture taking and cameras for photography to be two different things. Sure the camera manufacturers are taking a hit from the P&S decline, but photography isn't.

The photographer wants a camera not a phone with a camera in it.

Mirrorless taking over from DSLR, who cares.
If they get so good that there is no longer a compelling reason to have a DSLR then well and good. It is more likely that it would be a raising price point for a DSLR though lower manufacturing volumes, rather than the mirrorless cameras form factor that would have me begrudgingly move.
My prediction is one won't take over from the other, they will find their own level with the DSLR holding a strong niche in the market.

Just professionals in future will buy cameras.... rubbish.
Photography enthusiasts and professionals will continue to buy cameras, just as they always have. The former P&Sers who took pictures now have a substitute, as do photographers who don't have their camera on them, and that's it really.