From one who’s also part of this business in all possible scales I have to agree with David . This hobby has always been expensive to manufacture compared to amount of items being produced and in the end quality is a critical factor ... funny is how fast the customer seem to forget how cheap he paid for a certain item the moment it fails..yes prices went down over the years and yes items manufactured in the Far East are even less expensive due to labor cost and poor quality control .
Labor cost is no longer low in the Far East anymore and even they understood that quality control is a beneficiary factor for them. This all raises prices .
David wrote the hobby will turn into a “Ferrari owners club” he is right . In a way it always was... true the hobby is more accessible to people in some aspects but the high end products are still out of reach to some people as many other things out there are ... it is a fact of life and not much can be done about it unless some generous billionaire will reach deep into his pocket and start producing it all , offering it to the public at under cost prices ...I’m not sure it will shrink the prices much
as the profit margin today is close to nothing making dessicion on keeping the business is an everyday struggle in our minds....