While that's true, it'd be exacerbated by a few things (in theory): 1) These instruments would still need to generate income to cover service costs. 2) Income

While that's true, it'd be exacerbated by a few things (in theory): 1) These instruments would still need to generate income to cover service costs. 2) Income generated per microscope would be reduced because of increased competition lowering beam time prices dramatically, so downtime is still very bad for microscope facilities. 3) More microscopes spread out over a wider geographical area means more service engineers needed (something I've experienced first-hand being in a state with only 3 microscopes, Thermo has been entirely unwilling to place a service engineer here because they can't cover the costs with just 3 microscopes, despite making probably ~1 million/year in service contracts). In general, I think reduced costs and increased accessibility are a very good thing, but when VPRs go to do the math on these, I think they still don't make a lot of sense.