Many film cameras used to be sold with only a fixed 50mm or a 35mm lens. The restriction forced people to think about what was in or outside the field of vision. Today's cameras that have 10x zooms do not force the same consideration, and I suggest that amateur photography has suffered as a result.
A friend of mine is a house-painter by trade, and has set himself the restriction to never use a brush when he paints a canvas. This forces him to consider what he really wants and how he can get there, instead of simply smearing paint around the canvas until he gets bored.
We have too many choices these days. Getting rid of a few can make results much more deliberate.
Zoom lenses have been the predominant kit lens for cameras for the better part of twenty years. I think the migration to digital (where the cost of shooting is ridiculously low) has had a much greater impact on the worsening of amateur photography.
That coupled with the ubiquity of sharing pictures on the internet has created a perfect storm of shittiness.
Professional photographers love to lament about this, and while much of it is elitist posturing; there is truth to it (I say that as someone who splits my time about 50/50 as a professional photographer).
I would be a far worse photographer than I am now if I did not have a digital camera. I do not have $5000 to blow on film and developer fees (or developing time, not to mention a lack of funds to blow on a darkroom setup) by experimentally learning about fstops or ISO settings, on a multi-day feedback loop, just for learning. I can afford batteries to take several thousand pictures, on a multi-second feedback loop, just for learning. My tools may be worse but I'm not aiming to be a pro.
Having started with a film SLR in the digital age, based on my personal experience I can say that it does not take $5000 of film or developer fees to learn f-stops or ISO settings on your camera, unless you have a spastic trigger finger. I learned the above, as well as the zone system, shutter speed, push/pull processing, metering, and night shooting using about 5-6 rolls of film. I did this on a camera I got for $50 off of eBay. Development time is about an hour (Take it to a lab! Why bring up darkroom costs if you wish to lower your costs?), so you can have feedback in the same day. The fundamentals don't take that long to learn.
Now, learning to color balance is levels harder, but that's something you have to do whether you're on film or digital.
I have since switched to a digital SLR for the reason that it's a pain to get film scanned. But if it wasn't for that, I'd keep on shooting film; my prints from film have been more gorgeous, with more dynamic range and detail, than images from my SLR. I also picked up an old TLR from eBay for $50 that lets me use 120 film. Digital cameras with that kind of resolution still costs $10,000 (e.g. Mamiya).
Finally, there's a certain joy one gets from crafting your print by hand in the darkroom, the sense of mystery as the print develops, that I now miss when I sit in front of my computer and click-click dodge-and-burn my images. Like you, I cannot justify the costs of setting up my own darkroom (although I believe a black-and-white darkroom is relatively inexpensive, depending on how good of a deal you can get on your enlarger, maybe $1000-$2000?), and even darkroom rental locations are fast disappearing. For that I feel a little sadness, like watching whales go extinct.
I pulled a number out of my ass, but I was also accounting for my time. I was also referring not just to fstops but the entire process of learning to take good photos which takes more than 5 or 6 rolls of film, composition and such can take an unbounded amount of time to learn. I do not care enough about the "certain joy" of darkrooms to spend money on it. I am not and have no intention of being <font face="script>"A Photographer</font>.
Chill, buddy. If you simplified your original statement to the point where it is no longer true, responses to it that are off base can hardly be surprising. Say what you mean, mean what you say.
Digital cameras didn't make amateurs worse, they just increased the amount of amateurs. And I'm sure it increased the amount of good photographers too, so I'm not sure what the complaint is here.
If old cameras took better pictures, then I implore professional photographers to use them.
The complaint was that the parent poster was postulating that amateurs have gotten worse recently, and that that could be explained by the increased usage of zoom lenses.
If I accept that the first statement is true (that amateurs have gotten worse), I disagree on the cause (that it's because of zoom lenses, as zoom lenses have been the norm on SLR's since the 80's).
I don't know objectively if amateur photographers are better or worse. I know that nowadays I see a lot more bad pictures than I used to (and while there is also an increase in good pictures, it hasn't increased nearly as much as the bad ones have). I am postulating that this is more likely due to the proliferation of digital and the ease at which photos can be shared (most people's crappy photos would only get viewed by their family members over the holidays when they dug out the slide projector).
I'm don't think it matters if old cameras took better pictures (for the most part, they did; although the other benefits of digital tend to make up for it).
Did you notice that getting rid of the brush actually increases the choices and undermines your point? At least, I assume the purpose is to use other things to put paint on canvas, thus creating a choice where conventionally there is none.
I would argue the lowering cost of entry into photography is what is decreasing quality. Those willing to make the larger investment in past years are also more likely to improve their skills.
Many film cameras used to be sold with only a fixed 50mm or a 35mm lens. The restriction forced people to think about what was in or outside the field of vision. Today's cameras that have 10x zooms do not force the same consideration, and I suggest that amateur photography has suffered as a result.
A friend of mine is a house-painter by trade, and has set himself the restriction to never use a brush when he paints a canvas. This forces him to consider what he really wants and how he can get there, instead of simply smearing paint around the canvas until he gets bored.
We have too many choices these days. Getting rid of a few can make results much more deliberate.