Despite releasing some rather well-acclaimed products, times are not easy for GoPro. Earlier this March, the action-camera giant announced another round of layoffs, bringing the total to almost 500 since last November, and reducing their staff to two-thirds of what it was less than two years ago. While this number sounds extreme, their stock market trends are no better: recent prices have gotten as low as almost $7 per share - compared to $98 in October, 2014. If there was ever a time to release sensationalist headlines with shocking percentages, it would be now.

However, this layoff announcement brings up as many questions as it does answers. What is the root cause? Are these trends affecting the rest of the market as much as they are GoPro? Has GoPro's stock value finally reached its perigee, and will it be rising again?

I'm going to start by saying that I am not a financial analyst, and that my answers to some of these questions are speculation at best. I do, however, feel that there is an important perspective to be heard: that of the athletes, producers, and cinematographers that use - or no longer use - their products. I've been the person often trusted with questions such as, "What GoPro should I get?" and have even gotten to the point where I wrote an entire article on that topic to save myself the redundancy of addressing the same concerns. Consumer influence and peer-reviews go a long way - hence the existence of entire subsets of digital marketing dedicated to those topics - and there is definitely advice to be given from the consumer level.

So, why has GoPro been struggling recently? For starters, it is (but wasn't always) an extremely saturated market. In addition to more direct competitors such as the Garmin VIRB or the KeyMission 170, I've seen cheap brands I've never even heard of for less than $70 at Walmart. GoPro started to fight back with the GoPro HERO and the Session, however, I've always believed that focusing on the higher-end products was a bit of a gamble. I love my Hero 4 Black and Hero 3+ Black, and have done a lot with them. I also use Protune, and flat picture control, and 120 frames per second, but does everybody? I've had people tell me verbatim, "I want it to turn on, take video, and turn off." There's a difference between a videographer and an athlete who wears a camera, and the latter has no real need to spend $500 on a camera when a competitor is offering one for $70. Even on the higher end, GoPro's market dominance has been a driver of innovation and differentiation, resulting in competition such as the 360Fly and Revl Arc that bring niche functionality into an already crowded market.

Discussing the saturation of the market also brings up another question: how large (and how sustainable) is the market itself? I would haphazardly describe the market as "amateur photo and video, with an emphasis on sports, adventure, and travel." Clearly, it is large and stable enough to turn GoPro into a billion-dollar company, and isn't something to scoff at. It does, however, have its limits. How many of those customers are repeat customers? If you want repeat customers, they need to either feel the need to upgrade their cameras and/or buy additional cameras. This is a smaller segment of the overall market, and often links up with the more professional and prosumer markets that have more of a need for the higher-end products, like I mentioned above. I've also heard speculation that some of GoPro's marketing, which features the higher-end aspects of sports such as whitewater kayaking and BASE jumping, can actually alienate the average consumer, who feels their activities don't warrant or deserve the use of such cameras. I'm not taking a side on that theory, but it is worth hearing.

Alongside the rest of the camera industry, the action-camera market still faces the impeding threat from smartphones. Smartphone cameras are rapidly rising in their capabilities, and have undoubtedly cut into the point-and-shoot camera market (Tony Northrup discusses this further with Nikon's CoolPix series here). GoPro was once shielded by differentiation, providing products that offer a level of dust-resistance, shock-resistance, and waterproofing above the average camera. With more robust smartphone designs, third-party mounts, and durable cases, this is becoming a valid concern. What do smartphones have that GoPro doesn't? Simple: people already have them. What's easier: buying a few things for your phone, or buying an entirely new camera system along with the required accessories that go with it? I hate having to accept the fact that a lot of our population is lazy and has lower standards for video, but it needs to be done.

However, none of this addresses an important question: is this the last of the layoffs, and were they the right decision? Is the decreased investment in their employees (as well as the cost of morale) worth the lower operating budget in the long run? This issue was addressed byThe Motley Fool and brings up a valid point about the importance of human resource in a field that combines technology with creativity. Only time will tell.

Lastly, here is the most difficult question of all: what will be the endgame? What will happen to GoPro? I think GoPro has recognized some of their weaknesses, and has made tangible improvements in both targeting a lower-cost market as well as (slightly) improving user interface from their 3+ series up to their 4 and 5 series (again...slight improvements). I think they came too late, but too late might also prove to be better than never. I don't expect to see GoPro go away anytime soon, but I think it's safe to assume that they've reached their financial heyday, and the vast GoPro empire of ~2015 might be done for good. Maybe they expanded too fast, and maybe it worked at the time but now they just need to adapt to a changing market. It's the nature of the beast, especially when a company not only creates a new product but an entire industry.

I still like GoPro, and will continue to use their products in the future. They've served me well. I hope they can make a name for themselves in the newer fields of virtual-reality and 360-degree video (after all, it can't be that hard to outdo Nikon's KeyMission abomination), and I hope they keep listening to the feedback of their customers. I also sympathize with those that were laid-off, and still question GoPro's decision-making in that regard. Will GoPro move on to simply become a smaller company that commands a smaller market? Will they be bought out or absorbed into a larger company? Will they rise again to what they once were? It's not the answer we all want, but only time will tell.