I found Lomography film in a store.

[keithwms]

but don't you think it should be rational material value, that we should be better consumers, that we should expect more for our ever harder to earn cash?

Good luck defining a rational value for such a low volume, faddish item. Look, the price is what the marketing people determined they could get. And they know that their whole storefront market could be gone overnight, just like the fashions in those stores. Think about the pricing this way: it's like pricing penny stocks. Could be up 20% one day, down 40% the next. Hmm kinda like Kodak

Even if you did have a rational price, I bet you somebody will still want the costlier thing for what it does. And guess what, they are as entitled to that as any of the brandwankers but I shall say no more...

The concept of rational value is much better applied to mass-production Nikons and Canons- those are high volume products up against real competition that are sold under constantly fluctuating market demand, which forces the prices to go up or down in a more or less rational way.

[eurekaiv]

There is a price, based around R&D plus material and manufacturing costs, that engineering and product managers might tell you is the dollar amount needed to create X amount of profit. And there's the price that moves the most units. They don't necessarily align. For example, my wife makes jewelry and runs a shop on Etsy as a hobby. Materials are cheap (maybe a few $ total) and she can make say 20 identical items in around 4 hours total. She would sell these for around $15/ea and sell a few items a week. I always thought this was too cheap even though it's a $300 take (minus supplies and commission to PayPal and Etsy) and convinced her she needed to raise her prices. When she did, her sales increased about 20%. So after a few months, I convinced her to go up to $25 and she was able to increase her sales another 5-10%. So it's not unreasonable to think that the kind of folks making a Lomo purchase might see the Lomo item as a higher quality item then the equivalent Time magazine freebie camera from the 80s, or any other cheapie that can be had at Goodwill for $5 or less.

[Helinophoto]

Look

Lomography is, from what i gather, about the fun of taking pictures. Its about the inability to predict what your camera does in general, it's about capturing moments in new and unexpected ways.

Just the other day I was thinking about the phrase "It's all been done before, there is nothing new to photograph", is it, really?

I was thinking how boring we all are now days, street photography showing the same boring people in the same clothes, driving the same boring cars, all over the world.

Nobody wear hats any more for example, just those silly caps with some global brand logo on them, at best.
The everyday fashion is generic and uninteresting.
Heck, you can't even tell car-brands apart anymore, without looking at the current logo in the front.

Just think about the remarkable difference this is, from the days in the 50's and 60's ^^

Lomography is about capturing this seemingly boring world we live in in new ways, a different perspective, informal, "cool", in your face.

Fast paced but with an old style nostalgia and a fascination about imperfection to it, I suppose.

Treat it for what it is. This is a very different thing than the photographic craftsmanship we can often see on this very site, but all "art" is not the same

Here is an interesting film about lomography and its history:
http://vimeo.com/m/21735770

I personally don't own a Lomo flavoured camera, but I was tempted to buy some questionable eastern European brands while in the Czech republic (Fotoskoda and a few other more all-analogue stores) a couple of years back, for kicks

I regret I didn't buy any ^^

And remember, the more film-wasters there are out there, the better off the community and industry as a whole is.