I liked the argument in the article: film “works” because it can do a bit less: it adds enough hassle that the rest of the production (e.g., lighting) is done more carefully, and thus the whole thing comes out better.

On a similar thread to this is the aspect of how film shoots did not have a video village. The primary people to see what the camera was shooting as the DP and Director. Video Assist came along (the old b&w flickering TV near the film camera) that allowed more people to see the image. Once a video feed could be provided to anyone, every body started to provide opinions. This actually slows things down.

Barriers to entry tend to raise quality. But people tend not to consider that a good argument for keeping them.

I don't think taken to this extreme this is true either. Sure for a given film setup you could come up with a better digital setup but that doesn't mean every digital setup is strictly better now than what you'd use if digital wasn't an option. and you could always construct some monstrosity of a camera that just throws more film at the problem to get a better result, though IMAX seems to be the limit of what people are willing to do on that front.

Why is digital trying to look more like film instead of the other way around?

Because sometimes digital footage has to be matched to film. Alternatively, some directors enjoy film artifacts just like some people enjoy analog distortion artefacts in audio.

Additionally, you seem to be asking a lot of leading questions but not volunteering any opinions of your own. Is there something you'd like to share?

Because film has a color grade built in to some extent ewhile digital does not. The "look" people built into the film back in the day because they couldn't just do it in post can still be a great look today and is pretty orthogonal to objective quality of the information captured.

Basically all of film innovation history has been about constantly trying to look more like digital.

Because people are funny.

It's the same reason you'll still find scenes and photos shot in sepia tone and black and white. People prefer the way film looks even though it's less true what was actually shot.

People like typewriters, vacuum tube amplifiers, and Vinyl records; Not because they are better than their more modern counterparts, but because of nostalgia and a preference for the "feel" of these things.

But, it just so happens that it's easy enough to recreate film effects that actual film ends up being just a masochistic activity.

This is it 100%.

Vinyl and Film may technically be less accurate at reproducing the original, but the ways in which they are imperfect gives them a “feel” which many like.

It's rare that people try to do that now, the person you were replying to said that's it's possible, not that it's common.

This just isn't true. Take a 35mm camera and a digital camera side by side to shoot the same scenes, and there will be noticeable differences. Some maybe subtle, but they are there. As I just commented somewhere else here, the highlights are a key area of this difference. Digital clips where film rolls off. I've seen so so many digitally shot scenes where there's an actor against a bright sky. There is nearly zero detail left in the sky as they've pushed the exposure for the actor's face. The details in clouds are absolutely gone. It makes me cringe every time I see it.

Doesn’t colour film have different layers of emulsion sensitive to different wavelengths of light?

That’s not so different from digital having RGB filters right?

Could expand on the rolls off phrasing you just used, if you don't mind?

I have a decent amount of experience with digital audio is why I ask.

Hmm, not across the whole pipeline though. For instance, 35mm film tops around the equivalent of 12k columns of resolution, while a lot of digital cinemas are still equipped with 2k projectors.