[cschmidt]

My parents would greatly disagree with you. They're fairly computer literate, but for them photos don't "count" unless they're on paper. I always feel guilty because they never get to see many of my good photos locked away in Aperture. I think that's exactly the market here.

[ugh]

Exactly. Your parents. Not you.

(That said, there’s plenty of time for this startup to thrive. I wouldn’t worry about it.)

[cschmidt]

My wife feels the same way, actually. But isn't that the market here. It is computer literate people with lots of digital pictures (me), with relatives that want prints (my family).

I don't think this startup should worry about the demise of prints any more than Netflix worried about the demise of the DVD when they started. (Of course, they've since worked hard to transition to digital, and been very successful at that, but not at the beginning.)

[jordanlev]

Well we're obviously just talking about anecdotal evidence here, but I'm a young-ish hacker-news-reading programmer, and I am really excited about this service because I love having prints. I also want to sign my brother up for this so I can get pics of my nephew but only 15 per month, not the usual 150-per-facebook album.

[chopsueyar]

I think you are on to something there with the 15 prints a month limit...

Figure out some way to create a scarcity of images, so only the worthwhile pictures are used/shown, not the 150-per-facebook album, as you mentioned.

[iamscanner]

Maybe I'm an outlier here - but I actually prefer physical photos. It's too easy for someone to just spray digital photos everywhere - when they're physical, you have constraints that mean I'm seeing the photos you decided were worthy of being printed.

Apparently my market is supposed to shrink - but I know among friends as well, a printed photo still carries a lot more weight than a digital one ever will.

[hnsmurf]

Yeah I'm certainly not suggesting there's no demand for this now. I just think the demand will shrink over time. I don't think I'd want to try to build a long term business in a market that will certainly shrink.