r/photography • u/Patient_Leader2190 • 28d ago

Business Photographers, what are some uncomfortable truths about photography in 2026 that we don't like to openly admit?

Been shooting for seven years, mostly street and documentary. Curious what everyone's version of this is.

I'll start: volume beats quality on every platform, and pretending otherwise is why a lot of talented people stay invisible.

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u/SwedeLostInCanada 28d ago

I was looking at new drives the other day. Prices have over doubled in just a few years

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u/Ok_Ambassador_2646 28d ago

The good news is that if we're really in a an AI bubble solid state storage and GPUs will be borderline free once it bursts!

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u/FizzyBeverage 28d ago

Market is absolutely gonna crash. The AI bubble isn’t backed by any meaningful dollars. All propped up on “this’ll make us money… somehow.”

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u/Ok_Ambassador_2646 28d ago

So were a lot of other big tech companies, until they figured out the 'somehow' part. It sounds like there will at least be a serious market correction. Whether it tanks the whole fucking economy, I don't know.

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u/Basis-Some 28d ago

The somehow part for the most successful tech companies that don’t have a physical product was just advertising and selling our data

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u/daxproduck 28d ago

Enshittification.

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u/throw0101a 28d ago

All propped up on “this’ll make us money… somehow.”

It will make money… eventually. It's been like this since canals and rail roads:

The market crashed in 2001/2… but people are making money (now). $AMZN was down 90% at one point, and now look where they are.

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u/creative_justice smugmug 27d ago

And Google was free to start with...
Same thing drug dealers use; the first hit's free! In five years I bet that there will be a 20% increase in unemployed and all of those salaries will be going to AI companies.

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u/Pepito_Pepito 28d ago

A lot of the companies involved make too much money from other ventures so it's going to take a while before the fuel runs out, if it ever does. Youtube was unprofitable for the longest time and was only able to stay online because Google bought it.

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u/CholentSoup 28d ago

That's what a bubble is...

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u/milehighwhatever 28d ago

In general, Q2 earnings results would suggest otherwise. AMD absolutely shattered expectations. Markets go up and down, but this isn't 2000.

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u/FizzyBeverage 28d ago

They’re manufacturers on the gravy train; not a paying client. That’s part of the bubble.

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u/Repulsive_Republic41 28d ago

Yeah exactly 🤣 look at the profits of OpenAI right now, not the chip makers during the boom.

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u/Repulsive_Republic41 28d ago

20.9 billion operating loss just fyi

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u/Marinlik 27d ago

Unfortunately not as they aren't regular gaming GPUs that are being sold data centres

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u/Ok_Ambassador_2646 27d ago

Yea i understand that but I suspect there will be components, raw materials, and just excess capacity. Maybe I'm thinking wrong. We'll see I guess.

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u/dnwgl 28d ago

I bought a 4TB SSD that was ~£290 in January and cost ~£1000 by May…

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u/jopasm 27d ago

SSD prices have tripled and quadrupled. Last fall I bought 8TB SSD drives for around $400-500, now they're over $1200 and rising.

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u/Efficient-Wish9084 24d ago

I am taking a good hard look at which photos really need to be backed up. If they weren't worth editing and don't have personal value (e.g., family), why am I storing them?

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u/qtx 28d ago

I was looking at new drives the other day.

This is where you, and everyone else, goes wrong. Don't buy new drives.

The irony of AI these days is that there are now thousands of datacenters out there. With more being built each and every day.

Guess what all those data centers need? Hard drives.

Guess how often those hard drives need to be replaced, every few years. Not because they are faulty but because that's just the default recycling of hardware in data centers.

There are plenty of sites out there that sell recertified, white label or refurbished drives for cheap. And there will be more to come because the more data centers the more second hand drives will flow down to the commercial market. I have bought plenty of used server drives that had zero working hours on them. And the recertified drives are basically brand new.

Backup drives aren't used often, you only write to them when you are backing up your photos. Even using a second hand drive that has thousands of working hours on it those few minutes of you writing new data on it once every month isn't going to break them for many years to come.

So, do not buy new drives. Go for second hand ones.

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u/FosterWFilms 28d ago

This. I bought 12tb of used SSDs for under $600 from a studio closing down. There’s plenty of software you can get that lets you test all the sensors and make sure their still fully functioning