> To be fair, film photography has itself always been, "Monkey with a trust fund on a typewriter."

As a GenXer who lived through the transition, and worked a photo-processing job for a couple of years, I disagree. There were plenty of people taking meaningful—though perhaps not artistic—photos with point and shoot and even disposable cameras.

Regular people taking photos of birthdays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, vacations, retirements, etc. I processed and colour corrected tens of thousands of photos and the majority of them had people smiling, laughing, crying, etc, and were put in photobooks: some to never to be seen again, or perhaps looked when someone died when memories for a photo slideshow were desired.