Julian et al, with respect to your and those who seem to think along these lines in any business scenario, and with respect to your opinion, I must say that I think this kind of pessismism always misses the bigger picture, and is a past oriented view point, always looking at what has been when the big successes in business usually happen out of what has not yet occurred in industry and in life - these are the things that entrapaneurs and intuitive business people foresee instinctively and they succeed based on that instinct, they feel what is around the corner when others are gloomy about what wasn't around the last one instead of realising that the unknown is unknown because prcisely, it is unknown!! It's like a wave in the ocean, when you're surfing, you know one will come but you don't know when or how it will be, but a good and experienced surfer feels the wave and catches it.
I would say the reverse, in fact, that the market is set to continue to expand if not healthily, perhaps exponentially, because more and more low and mid budget productions will be turning to samples and specifically VSL as a way to increase quality while still maintaining budget. This is especially true as tomorrows hardware starts to see yesterdays prices.
Miklos.