something that is overlooked about gopro is that they owned both the consumer & prosumer markets…lots of filmmakers & productions would rock with gopro’s as maybe a b camera, definitely c, d, e, f, cameras…they were relatively cheap, they produced usable quality video, fairly robust, pretty much always in focus, are tiny enough to stick places you couldn’t or wouldn’t want to put an expensive camera, and came with an editing suite to extract a little extra ability to edit files…
some of gopro’s downturn maybe is connected to the movie business shrinking, increased competition (some of the knockoffs/cheaper no name companies cameras produce footage at least as good if not better in some ways) not only from cheaper cameras, but also bigger sensor mirrorless cameras that cost about the same (or less!) as a new gopro…gopro also missed an opportunity with drones early on, dji is the biggest consumer drone maker & their 1st few drones came with options for mounting a gopro! eventually dji made its own all-in-one solution and gopro i think partnered with the now defunct 3dr consumer drone…
i believe gopro do, or at least used to, have a paid ‘pro level’ editing suite that would process the raw footage into cineform or something, not sure if it was used by pros though…
i don’t think the session has been very successful, not so much because of its form factor or functionality (adding an additional button or 3 wouldn’t hurt, though on an action cam on button operation makes sense for in the moment start & stop recording as well as maybe less water seals) but its price and feature set relative to the regular gopro…sure it is smaller but it isn’t like the gopro is much bigger and you get more features…especially when you consider that the previous generation(s) gopro is just as capable as the session and costs even less, and the waterproof case isn’t that much of an inconvenience considering the use case…
i think i’ve had every generation, if not version of gopro (except for any sessions)…the interface has come a long way with the recent touch screen version and it a more capable camera than it has ever been, if their pricing changed i feel like they would at least sell more cameras