How many cameras did they think the world would buy? Digital went through a rapid period of technological improvement but it has slowed. My Olympus m43 body is an amazing camera about which I have few complaints. A new camera would need to be radically superior before I would spend the money. Before that I was planning on just keeping my Nikon D70 forever, but it was stolen. My father shot a Canon AE-1 for decades, until film finally became too hard to find. I don't think just being on a treadmill of buying new cameras was common in the film era.