This is much closer to reality. Markets are priced by demand far more than supply - if you have a perpetual source of demand to milk, the pricing isn't going t

This is much closer to reality. Markets are priced by demand far more than supply - if you have a perpetual source of demand to milk, the pricing isn't going to come down easily, even if supply could have been made more efficient. I suspect it's a bit of a mixed bag - regulations certainly can be (and are) used as a tool to lock in control in ways that benefit the corporations leading the industry and not the consumer - but abolishing said regulations just makes it even worse. Regardless, if AI is able to lower the bottom-line engineering/labor costs of producing these things (which it absolutely will) then you'll see pretty clearly where the corruption rests. We should expect far better as consumers going forward, and demand both better prices and quality.