Printing at Home?

Should I say, err... Still printing at home?
Interesting data that backs up a lot of what Daniel and I are seeing in the marketplace.

Slashdot | Why Do-It-Yourself Photo Printing Doesn't Add Up: "For the 12 months ended in July, home printing accounted for just 48 percent of the 7.7 billion digital prints made, down sharply from 64 percent in the previous 12 months, according to the Photo Marketing Association International, a trade group for retailers and camera makers. The number of photos spewing out of home printers is up quite handsomely, however, because of the overall growth of digital photo printing--up about 68 percent from the year-earlier period - but retail labs clearly have the advantage...'"

More at CNet:
Cool Graph too.

Printers return relatively low profit margins. But the ink, ounce for ounce, is four times the cost of Krug Clos du Mesnil Champagne, which sells for around $425 a bottle. Ink is about the same price as Joy perfume, considered to be one of the more pricey fragrances, at $158 for a 2.5-ounce bottle
...

The shallowness of the trend line also suggests that a new culture of photographs has been created. Consumers print their photos, but moreover, they share their photos more often and technology allows them to do it without printing. Cameras now come with liquid-crystal-display screens of 2.5 or 3 inches designed just for that purpose.

From the New York Times: (no registration req'd)

Prints made at home will certainly last a long time. That's certainly one good reason that these printers are popular with hobbyists and professionals. Independent studies say that home printers produce copies that should last 80 to 100 years without fading or yellowing, assuming you used leading inks and recommended photo paper. Marketers at Canon and Hewlett like to point out that those studies also show that prints made by photo processors decades ago now show signs of fading. (Today's photo processing machines are supposed to produce prints that will last as long as the home-printed versions.)