I'd disagree with a lot of the opinions expressed in this thread. But in this post I won't talk about digital in the pro market.
Digital penetration of the mass market isn't because of agressive marketing; it's because digital is a better product, *when judged by the criteria that are important to the consumer*. Film is inconvenient for many reasons. You have to take it to a store to have it processed; a roll of film is too long for it all to be used up on a single occasion; you can be caught without film. Digital solves all those problems, and adds the immediacy that made polaroid cameras so popular. You can take three or four pictures, then see them within minutes. Image quality was always good enough for display on the TV, or for emailng a shot of the new grandchild to the folks back home. With almost all photo printers, you don't even need a computer; if you want a hard-copy print to send to a relative who is still in the pre-computer stone age you can have one in a matter of a few minutes. And the current crop of 6x4 (or smaller) printers are compact enough to fit just about anywhere. But what about long-time image storage? Well, what about it? I'm sure my mother-in-law isn't the only person who throws away the negatives and just keeps a handful of prints for a while. Photography isn't an archive medium for the masses - it's all about the moment. Filing negatives just isn't important. People don't buy digital cameras because they are gullible dupes of the marketers, or because they are ignorantly aping the professional photographers thay see (when was the last time you saw a pro using a Sony? An Olympus?). They buy a digital P&S because it is the right tool for the job.
