Give a hand to social media, which is so effective at making us want things we might not even want that it’s now created a run on another incredibly old point-and-click camera. The Canon PowerShot ELPH 360 HS is the latest camera to earn a place in the social media hall of fame for people chasing that mid-2010s photo aesthetic.
This thing went on sale in early 2016, and even back then, it was no contender for best snapshot taker. That’s the sort of low-tech, nostalgia-tinged effect much of social media is going for, though. Just take a look at the success of the Camp Snap. People want, in some cases, imperfect photo quality.
stock goes down, price goes up
Keep in mind that you’ll be paying a premium for buying a camera that’s such a hot item right now. Canon’s most recent retail price for the PowerShot ELPH 360 HS was $360. Not that it’ll do you much good, since it remains out of stock on Canon’s own website.
Even though major retailers had been restocking the ELPH 360 HS regularly over the past couple of years, they were likely working through a backlog of old stock. At some point, the tap will run dry.
I believe we’re starting to see the first signs of a trickle. Toward the end of 2024, I saw that stock of the ELPH 360 HS was still relatively abundant, and you could find the camera easily for under $500.
Now, I haven’t found it in stock anywhere for under $500. The going rate right now seems to be between $500 and $600, with the more classic black examples thinner on the ground right now than the more common silver ones.
When it comes to Best Buy, I don’t even know what they’ve got planned. It’s out of stock and listed for the same $360 retail price that Canon proclaims, but they have a disclaimer that reads “The item is currently sold out, but we are working to get more inventory.”
It could just be a boilerplate disclaimer that appears whenever Best Buy marks a product out of stock and doesn’t mark it as discontinued, but who knows. Maybe there really just are a ton of PowerShot ELPH 360 HSs out there, having piled up during its production run.
The post Social Media Created a Run on a Nine-Year-Old Camera appeared first on VICE.
