Your first reaction might be that this idea is ridiculous. GoPro is GoPro, right? It’s the action camera king, everyone loves GoPro! Surely it’s not going anywhere?
But as Josh recently wrote, GoPro stock is on the decline. The dominance it used to enjoy over the action camera market is over, with rivals like DJI and Insta360 offering superior imaging performance with larger sensors and better lenses, and companies like Akaso tearing strips off the market share at the low end with bargain-bin action cameras. Over in Japan, DJI has overtaken GoPro as the top-selling action camera brand. The king’s reign is in peril. Barbarians are at the gates.
Of course, GoPro is not doing nothing about this. It is responding in the time-honoured way that businesses have historically responded to stagnating revenues – by attempting to squeeze more cash out of the existing customer base. That’s why you may now enjoy paying for a GoPro Premium Subscription, which will grant you benefits like a Quik app that works properly, a library of stock music for your clips, and of course, discounts on the future GoPro products you’re going to buy (please).
Don’t worry if the subscription doesn’t interest you; there are more opportunities to spend your money. After all, if you want to get the most from your Hero 13 Black, you should probably pick up the new HB Series lenses, ranging from $69 to $129. And don’t forget that Contacto Magnetic Door and power cable kit ($99). Though if you’re going to buy the Hero 13 Black at all, you should go for the Creator Edition ($649) with accessories like the Light Mod, the Volta mount, and everything else. If someone were to actually do this, they’d easily spend $1,000. On a GoPro.
If GoPro wants to stay on top, it needs to do better than that. When the Hero 13 Black came out, one feature users were most excited about was the return of built-in GPS, after it was inexplicably removed from the Hero 12. That’s not really a sign of a product line that’s in robust health, is it?
It’s time to innovate. Something new, something different. It’s not like GoPro hasn’t managed this in the past – HyperSmooth stabilisation was a genuine game-changer for action cameras. (‘But isn’t the best form of Hypersmooth stabilisation now locked behind a $99.99 per annum subscription?’ I hear you ask. Why, yes! Yes it is!)
I don’t know what that innovation looks like – if I did, I wouldn’t be here, I’d be down at GoPro’s office with a whiteboard – but I do know that it needs to come soon. Otherwise, GoPro risks becoming the action camera world’s Ozymandias. The king who seemed eternally unassailable, until one day, he wasn’t.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk
