Do people think the money is in photography?

I am scratching my head trying to work out who on earth actually pays for photography.

Brides and Grooms - aside from the fact there are hardly any weddings any more - all the B&Gs that I have encountered are quite happily using friends/relatives with cameras and crowdsourcing the iPhone snaps from the congregation.

I remember one woman getting married and her mother insisting on a photographer so she went online and found one that ended up being pretty crummy.

Business tends to use whatever lies to hand. I have been watching people at ribbon cuttings at my chamber of commerce all happily photographing events with iPhones and iPads. I could do a hell of a lot better with my digital SLR. I never get asked. The photos on the Chamber website are pretty grim.

The problem is... people are content with poor quality wile refusing to pay for better quality. With an attitude whereby anything free is better than something of high-quality that costs money, how does anybody make any money from photography?

I was just looking at one of the online photographers websites - photos that weren't straight, were't particularly sharp, weren't well framed - in general photos that were complete garbage. I contrast that with my well exposed, well framed images that nobody even looks at. The only thing those websites have going for them is hundreds of bad quality images that scream amateur while I tend to prefer a few higher quality images.

Am I wrong in presenting a few higher quality images? Should I be plastering the place with thousands of crap images?

The biggest problem is that we have to many MWACs out there taking crappy snaps then milking the market. I don't know how they make their money when their photography is so lousy.